


Clockwork

by LightningLaveau



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Misunderstanding, Political Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Sam's mom blows up Twitter, SamSteve moments, evil conspiracy, some sensuality, somewhat canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:22:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 96,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningLaveau/pseuds/LightningLaveau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All evidence pins the Vienna blast on one James Buchanan Barnes. Bottling up his grief, T'Challa sets out to bring the perpetrator to justice. But Barnes fascinates him in a way he had not anticipated, and the truth of the <em>asset's</em> supposed involvement comes to light soon enough. What T'Challa and his squad find instead will pit them and the renegade Avengers against a familiar enemy—one hell-bent on revenge.<br/>A somewhat canon-compliant expansion from <em>Civil War.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic expands on the events of Civil War and bridges between it and the events of Black Panther. In this canon, 2 years pass between the assassination of T'Chaka and when T'Challa assumes the throne.  
> I began writing this after CACW but long before Black Panther came out, so there will be noticeable differences in canon such as the number of ethnic groups comprising Wakanda and some of the leadership structuring. The tribes in this 'verse are based off of Turkana Valley-area groups in real life (save obviously for the Jabari). Will include notes highlighting these as we go along. Hope y'all enjoy :-)

* * *

**VIENNA**

One more shredded body is dumped at his feet.

_See what you have done._

This lacerated corpse joins the eleven, the Lagos Eleven, they his children. This twelfth, not.

Twelve casualties in two days. But he cannot think of it that way. They are eleven and one, undeniably, embarrassingly, and always shall be. T'Challa is not so callous as to dream of pretending otherwise.

Uncountably more remain injured. A once highly-populated block of Lagos now lies in ruins. Back home, tensions along the South Sudanese and Nigandan borders have rocketed to an all-time high. Infectious disease centers around the planet all fly into a paranoia-induced panic. Global biochemical warfare positioned at 11:59 on the doomsday clock. Civilian unrest, a ticking time bomb of its own.

All under his watch. T'Challa would spend eons wondering whether his blessed father had  _known_.

And of course the first-responders, these Avengers, remain unreachable—both across an ocean and behind a mountain of international immunity, no matter what had been stamped into some crowd-sourced rulebook. With each passing second revealing no one on the demon's trail, T'Challa burns.

He burns on the outside, can feel his own eyes drying out from raw heat. Yet within, some foul, depraved banshee in his head still moans into the void.

_Why had all of that not sated you?_

_Why ask for one soul more?_

_Why my father's?_

Why him? 

_Haramu-fal_ , he will come to be known. The thought nauseates him. His vision blurs.

In many other regards, Vienna is a blur unto itself. Yet there is a sick duality to the mess, a rigid split eerily in tune with the rest of his existence. 

For, should he so choose, he can remember the scene with perfect clarity. He can pinpoint the shape and trajectory of each individual shard of glass, including the nine that had pierced his beloved father's spinal column, lungs and heart. He can play the scene in slow motion, in reverse, and on repeat, can lose himself in the horrors his head hoards like gems. Droplets of blood freeze in the air like so many loose pearls.

But T'Challa can fly. Few know this. The other half of his eternally dual state enables him to rise to heights yet untouched and unseen. He can soar, can lose himself in endorphin-fueled bliss, teetering upon a brink overlooking nirvana. The red, red pearls disappear beneath clouds, giving way to ozone-scented mist. The lure of oblivion, to release his earthly tether, floods his nerves like nothing else he can fathom.

And for an amount of time that would later come to disgust him, he does give into the temptation. It would be during this inexplicable high that Romanoff had approached him. Never in his life would he think her timing coincidental.

In those hazy seconds, it is the weight of his father's ring that snaps him back down to earth. Like the other pieces of the highest-ranking parure, the ring is not, in fact, pure vibranium; not, at least, cut from the rock within the Mound. This is instead the first-ever product of his _jungle_ , and thus currently of far higher value. It is heavy, and cuts into his skin like hot wire. He catches himself begging the thing to tear his flesh asunder, that he might offer it in exchange for five more minutes with his—with— _Papa—_

The weight on his finger reminds him. Charges him.

For the perpetrator lives on. Has the nerve to live on. With all eyes on the U.N. site in the following hours, Lynne can spot his face further down the Danube with ease, then in Bratislava, in Budapest, in Timisoara. The trail of footage left in his wake is almost laughable in its efficacy—a jarringly amateur retreat after such a professional hit. Otherwise, the strategist in T'Challa's mind nearly admires the perpetrator's prowess. Still, the Wakandan in his heart mourns the mass civilian grave at his back.

The king in his blood can only act. Must act. The livelihoods of millions depend upon the restoration of what little justice remains in this heavy life. And for the warrior in his bones, well.

T'Challa will not have it.

* * *

**ROMANIA**

He shudders awake twenty minutes outside of Bucharest. All at once a flood of guilt hits him like a sledgehammer to the throat, choking and hot. Sleep is a luxury, he scolds himself, one cruelly withheld from the grieving masses he has left behind. Those minutes he's wasted, now, he could have used—could have spent helping—could have helped— _you_ _could have stopped—_

"Easy," S'yan murmurs to him from the seat across, clearly exhausted as well. T'Challa cannot blame him; a life and a half have worn the former Panther's stamina to shreds, and it has been a night.

"I am at ease," he replies all too quickly, lying to his uncle's face. When first told that the habit would develop rapidly beneath the weight of the crown, T'Challa had laughed.

Now it is S'yan who laughs. "Oh? Then the horrors you confess aloud in your sleep, what are they? The fruit of a carefree soul?" A smile remains spread across his wizened face, one cracked at the edges with misgivings.

T'Challa scowls and rubs the raw skin beneath his eyes. That wretched bane of humanity, the inherent need to recharge. Inborn weakness. "I need to focus. For how long was I out?"

"Not long enough," S'yan sighs, waving to his aide for coffee and some form of protein. "But all the focus in the world will not abate an imbalance of the spirit. Make all the faces you want, but my advice remains the same: you had best find a time and place to process all of this. Otherwise the sludge will consume you whole, mark my words."

T'Challa refrains from rolling his eyes midway through the damn sermon. He's not young. Truth told, he's not seen worse than yesterday's tragedy, either, but that hardly means he hasn't seen  _bad._ "I'll process at the first available opportunity. For now, pull the briefing back up." If his tone comes across as harsh, well, it's no accident. Decades of schooling the world over have seen to it. 

His smile faltering, S'yan taps the keybead of his bracelet. For this mission, T'Challa has selected the two smallest jets from his fleet, one tucked inside the other. The tiny cabin has scarcely enough room for the two of them and the young aide. The narrow hold below is packed to the brim with their cargo: the neatly-folded VTOL, four footlockers between themselves and the pilot, and one far heavier  _suit case._

T'Challa reaches across their seats to lower the plastic window blinds; whether rising or setting, the sun would otherwise cast an unhelpful glare over the massive screen before them. He cannot afford any deception of the eye, even and especially at this moment. 

S'yan clicks away until a set of files line up across the screen: documents nabbed from the cataclysmic S.H.I.E.L.D. leak just over two years prior. These in particular contain decades-old shipping manifests, experimentation data, gray-market trade records, ex-KGB interviews, the like—many time-stamped, and all in regards to HYDRA's sole remaining fist. Its  _asset_.

The scan of an age-faded photograph renders scant detail beyond a manacled cadaver of a human, half-bleached from the frost of its cryo-chamber. T’Challa fights the urge to shudder, not for the first time that day.  _Beyond foul, all of it._ Photographic evidence past that point offers little elaboration: the murky silhouette of a sniper in Tel Aviv, garbled security footage of a fiery car wreck, and a cold red star stamped upon a metal arm. 

The last one provides more help than perhaps all the others combined. Few souls would know with certainty that the metal's origin was not, in fact, of this world; even fewer would recognize the telltale sheen of refined vibranium, especially through a dated snapshot.

"Zoom in on the prosthetic." T'Challa realizes he has irately begun drumming his fingers on the arm rest. Wedged into this tiny space for so long, his head filled with images of this monster—even the past few hours have begun taking a toll of their own. The air in here is stale, close to vile. He wants  _out_. 

"Beyond this point, the resolution drops." S'yan shoots him a look as he loosens his necktie. "This was no impromptu job. Truth be told, I'm reminded of Klaue."

S'yan's assertion is not an unfounded one. The arms dealer in question has no small number of back-end connections with many a Wakandan vibranium refinery, despite how hard T'Challa and his forebears had fought against him. Him, and his ilk, all with the same piggy eyes widening like saucers at the sight of the mines, while somehow missing the sheer number of people who lived atop them. Who lived honest lives through them. Who more than deserved the fruits of their own labor. Who, in a perfect world, would receive all that they'd earned.

Still, S'yan does not possess T'Challa's nigh-photographic memory. Not anymore. "I'll not shoot down the prospect of Klaue's involvement just yet. But check the date of this HYDRA cell's first vibranium shipment." T'Challa waits until the old man inhales sharply. "See, long before Klaue's date of birth. This  _asset—_ " Is he mad, or does the word burn his tongue? "—was one long in the making."

The rest of the documents have made that clear enough. Nanotech implantation to nervous system, over six decades. Prototype limb replacement procedures, well over seven. Structural improvements to cybernetic prosthesis, a never-ending side project. Extensive training in Muay Thai, Krav Maga, gymnastics, knife handling, firearms, marksmanship. Expert proficiency in stealth, espionage, information technology, wilderness survival, and all manner of vehicular operation up to and including a wide range of aeronautics. Increased muscular and organic tissue durability. Increased metabolic rates. High pain tolerance. The  _synapse cauterization project_ notes alone contain an oddly-sized gap. 

Then, the astronomical murder counts. The staggering list of international incidents pushed into place beneath the  _asset's_  bloodied fingertips. The clumsy redrawing of international borders afterward, the policy enacted, all prioritizing increased defense spending and more punitive correctional measures—particularly among specific societal segments. 

T'Challa had felt that particular sting firsthand mere hours before. Seemingly within moments of the U.N. detonation, in had come the bombardment of calls for closed borders, mass sting operations, public executions, the works. Press conference attendees weeping in their seats, many sporting bruises or bandages. Pundits in his face, all but frothing at the mouth in their urges for all-out war against the outsiders.

_Not today,_ he had sworn inwardly. Outwardly he'd kept his language appropriately more minced.  

By then, S'yan's political acumen had come into play.  _They'll need a distraction. A victory._  Something to stave off the war machines. Something with a face.

And T'Challa knows exactly what will suffice.

The pilot buzzes him over the intercom, as though the single set of doors between them are too thick for her voice to breach. "Five minutes until touchdown, majesty."

Good. T'Challa thanks the aide for the steaming cup of  _robusta_  and drinks deeply, letting his eyelids relax shut. This way, he need not meet his uncle's gaze. 

_Processing_ would come once justice had been restored, T'Challa assures himself. His target is not completely solid, no; the  _asset's_  overt trail and narrow, narrow triangulation come across as disturbingly convenient. But it's a first step, and no small one at that. Already his muscles tense in anticipation, his blood just below boiling point. 

_Soon._

* * *

**BUCHAREST**

_Something's off._

Off? Wrong word. 

...why?

Well, because there was a right—a  _correct_  word, yeah. _(Yeah?)_

But what made the correct word correct?  _What's wrong with 'off—?'_

He blinks. 

Everything is where it should be. None of his exterior traps have gone off, their signals still neutral. The air smells normal. No out-of-place vehicle makes, no wayward pressurization nor vibrations, no odd behavior from the never-ending mobs of _porumbiţi_.

His heart rate skyrockets nonetheless.

There's a song playing somewhere behind him, soft and tinny through outdoor café speakers. He knows the words, could sing along with it, all in full, throaty _Română_ —

_Something's wrong._

He feels something skittering across his skin, lighter than any insect and maddeningly invisible. Someone's watching him, leaving an ion trail behind.

Or so his muscles tell him. His mind is not to be trusted, so he’s learned to instead heed his body.

_get out get out get out_

He knows better than to approach the block. He's got the backpack on. That's all that matters. The cash, the weapons, the clothing stashed in his safe house, all are disposable. He's wiped it down as he does whenever he leaves. They'll find nothing with which to trace him. No need even to blow the place remotely.

One more glance around the street. Foot and vehicle traffic eke by. The street's lone pharmacy has closed for the day, and the single café boasts only a handful of tourists. Their fine suits conceal no weapons his eyes can detect, their collective demeanor blithe if not completely buzzed. One man drains his espresso cup before leaning back in his seat and tilting his handsome face to the sky, his eyes flickering shut. The sun blazes overhead, glinting every so often from their buttons and cufflinks, and from the mists of a fountain two blocks down— _blocks—_

_—whole block's fulla crooks, I tell ya. They couldn't pay me to live in Bed Stuy after—_

The words are there and gone in the span of a moment. He takes a shallow breath. One more line to add to the blue notebook. 

A truck passes in front of him and he jumps.

* * *

T'Challa is not sure whether to believe his eyes.

He knows better than to double check, of course. He's no fool, and this is hardly his first rodeo.

But the  _asset_  had indeed walked up, in broad daylight, practically to his own front door. Had halted in place, not five meters from T'Challa's seat.

Without missing a beat he tosses his head back, laughing with his new friends. He asks for nightclub recommendations, claps back at a weak jest, compliments the intricate pattern of a Versace pocket square. This afternoon, he is merely a tourist. 

Not one person has recognized him, even when he's removed his gold-rimmed sunglasses. This is a sobering pattern the world over; Wakanda's isolationism has extended to the media, sure, but no fewer than six times in the past had he been asked to show ID at his own press conferences, affronted aides and formal regalia be damned. Even today, no matter how similarly he's dressed to his new friends, the polizei squint at him for a good while longer before passing. He must smile, not too widely, lest this send the wrong message, all while quelling the frenzied thrumming of his heart and swallowing the bile burning a hole in his throat. Without his suit, he is far from bulletproof.

He has even rejected Kevlar for today's outing, much to S'yan's protest. But a vest, T'Challa knows all too well, would throw off the sleek silhouette of his Italian-cut suit. Would blow his cover from a mile off. Would signal the  _asset_  to go to ground long before even approaching the block. 

Still, his glimpse of the  _asset_  seems the stuff of fantasy. Of a plan falling all too perfectly into place, a dreamlike waltz of a scenario lacking any missteps. It confirms the authenticity of the footage they've collected, of Monica's tracing skills. Of just how real and imminent this threat to global peace remains.

The instant passes and the _asset_ is gone, likely hitched to that delivery truck. T'Challa bids his new friends farewell, promises to text when he's free for a night out. He'll certainly be out tonight, but his schedule is jam-packed, as it were.

Back inside Bucharest's Wakandan embassy, he lights up and keys a call to S'yan. The old man sounds shocked, much to T’Challa’s chagrin. "Then it is true? The man resembles the one from the footage?"

"All too well." The  _asset's_  shadowed face flickers into his mind's eye, and for the third time in eighteen hours, T'Challa is sorely tempted to smoke, not the heart-leaf pumice he's imbibing now, but something far less benign. Something foul. He wants to wreck his lungs and to dull his stinging senses and to see his precious father laugh again. "I need a vehicle tracked. Is Lynne awake?"

"Keying her in now." S'yan yawns over the line. "If it even needs saying, you missed nothing of consequence from the summit this afternoon."

_Damn._ T'Challa huffs as he shrugs out of his jacket.  _What exactly about the assassination of a world leader merits this lax a response…?_

"I'll need either a vehicle description or a tag." Monica Lynne jumps straight to business for once, her characteristic rapid-fire typing all but drowning out the musical timbre of her voice. Nearly smiling, T'Challa relays the license plate number before pulling on a very different ensemble: a gray compression shirt, thick black leggings and sturdy athletic foot wraps. "Jumping into satellite feeds... starting from your location at—how long ago?"

"Not quite nine minutes." On the other side of their suite, the aide has already begun unlocking the _suit case._

"Alright. Searching..." A sharp inhale. "A man jumped onto the side of the vehicle! This is who you're after?"

_Quick work._ Monica’s affinity with her _sky-eye_ is fiendish in its own right, at least to her targets. To T'Challa it is a lifeline. "Yes. Follow him. I'll be right behind you." He removes his father's ring before handing it to the aide for safekeeping.

"He's already made it to the rail station." Monica whistles. "No one's that fast. Who the hell—?"

"A war criminal." T'Challa winces, pulling on pieces of his suit. If Monica had any idea... _no._ Her cousin, a Conclave aide hardly older than S'yan's, was horrifically wounded in the U.N. detonation. Only when given clean-cut tasks has she been able to free her mind from stress, from anguish.

T'Challa's pragmatism rules the day; he needs Monica's mind clear and focused on the mission at hand.  _We can all process once this is finished._  

"Expect him to hop," he continues. "I doubt he'll attempt to purchase a ticket." Not if the _asset_ wished to keep attention off of himself. "I may have to board his train at a point outside the city." The suit's pieces begin automatically interlocking, their _living-metal_ strands solidifying together into one finely woven mesh.

"Lost our visual from the satellite feeds, but we do have access to the station's CCTV lines." Monica chuckles. "Friend owed a favor. Just a sec."  

"You intend to take him down aboard a train?" S'yan sighs from his end of the line. "And here I was hoping for some degree of discretion..."

"Hope for the best," T'Challa recites in his most insufferable move to date. "Expect the worst. Suiting up now."

"Wait." Rarely does Monica use imperatives with him, and never without merit. T'Challa takes heed while nonetheless syncing his helmet's frequency with his keybead's. "Majesty, he's leaving the station. Not aboard a train...back out the main entrance? On foot."

A wise move, T'Challa can acknowledge. The sprawling Bucharest surely holds more than one HYDRA safehouse, and security has increased tremendously across the globe since IFID. _Even if the U.N.’s empathy has not._ "Remind me of your name," he calls to the aide.

"B'Tumba, majesty." The young man has been all but silent since the moment they left Wakanda, his expression unremittingly grim. Well, grim until the moment T'Challa had donned the suit. Now he visibly struggles to keep from gaping, his eyes wide with awe. Many a Wakandan child had grown up admiring the heroics of S'yan's Black Panther, T'Challa recalls. B'Tumba looks just young enough to have been part of that generation.

He places one hand on B'Tumba's shoulder while folding his necklace into his cupped palms. "Thank you for your help, B'Tumba. Please wait here for S'yan’s return. Bill anything you would like to the room." As B'Tumba finally smiles, T'Challa dons the helmet and heads for the balcony. "Moving now."

A split second later he is airborne, leaping onto the adjacent roof as no other can.

Bast whispers into his bones, a bullroarer’s hum guiding him forward as though he were borne instead on an ocean current. The fibers of his suit stretch and compress as he moves, comprised largely of biovibranium straight from the Mound region's _jungle_. Not the first batch with which Shuri has deigned to work, but easily her finest creation to date. 

Sensory data from all directions flood T'Challa's nerves: the number and velocities of the pedestrians and drivers on the streets below, the temperature and direction of the late-spring breeze as he lopes, the decreasing distance between him and the station, as the crow flies— 

"Found him," Monica sings in two notes of triumph. "He's heading west now. I’ll keep forwarding the coordinates to your HUD in real time."

The setting sun hits his optics in rich golds from every direction—beaming from dead west, of course, but also reflecting off the older edifices’ filigrees and clipping the baked-clay roof tiles of the smaller buildings. T'Challa avoids these, instead adhering to the more recently-erected structures with gaping grates and shadow-ensconced nooks. He latches onto and swings from the stone and concrete walls with ease, scarcely making a sound as he encloses on Monica's dropped pin trail. The _asset_ is fast, no doubt about it, but he is faster.  

"Target's turning down...okay, I can't pronounce this," she remarks within minutes. "Uploading navpoint. He's slowing at… number one-seventy-one. Lost our visual, but it's a multi-use building. Apartments on top of ground-floor retail spots. Think it's another safe house?”

Șoseaua Panduri is a broad thoroughfare brimming with both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Soon enough, T’Challa has eyes—his own—on the place in question. Wedged between a tiny Latin food shack and carry-out-only Dominoes is the entrance to the gym, which is likely located deeper within the apartment complex. He crouches on the sloping roof of an adjacent building and watches as Barnes ducks inside. "I think the Winter Soldier goes to this gym," he relays to Monica, who snorts.

His immediate options are to either storm the place or to bide his time until whenever the _asset_ emerges, but neither he nor Monica can hazard the building's internal layout; the place could have dozens of other exits. A riskier option would require both a tinge of creativity and a heaping of charm. His specialty. T’Challa pretends to weigh all three for a solid second.

“Thank you, Lynne. Remain on standby in case the asset changes location again. S’yan, radio silence.”

Once his uncle’s end of the line goes mute, T’Challa removes his helmet.

* * *

He has _got_ to learn how to quit panicking.

After all, who the hell is even alive that would think to pursue him? No one in HYDRA—no names from the leak, at least, and none with faces he’d since pinned to names, all bodies he’d pinned to walls months ago in turn.

_The man on the_ —

No. He knows precisely where that person is now. Well, technically, where he was two hours ago, thanks to a live BBC report. Not quite enough time to have traveled from London on anything short of a space shuttle.

The man on the— _St—_

He realizes how close he’s come to splitting the sandbag, and halts. Stops. Breathes. His face is coated in sweat, first from his run, but now easily justified with his work on the sandbag, should the need arise.

_Calm down. Calm down. There’s no one there. No one’s after you. False alarm. False—_

He takes one more deep breath. Adjusts the boxing glove over his metal hand. He’d love to remove his hoodie, as the old gym’s air conditioning consists of a single shitty window unit, but there are a few other customers present and he has negligible desire to create a scene.

Three customers, to be precise. Two Italian tourists have been jousting in the gym’s lone boxing ring since long before he’d walked in, judging by their fatigued movements and heavy breathing. The third man had entered the gym only in the past few minutes, he’s pretty sure. He had scoped the place out weeks ago, selecting it as a solid hideout for a number of reasons: low-key clientele, highly defensible location, and decent proximity to the rail station, for starters. The lockers and free showers don’t hurt, either.

_Calm down. You can’t run forever_. He really, seriously cannot. He’s already blown three of his five good IDs, the vast majority of his cash, and all of his good bank account numbers. Only a matter of time remains before he’d need to put his hard-earned socialization skills to use.

_Wmp wmp fwmp pwmpwmp wmp wmp fump pmpwmp—_

The rhythmic pounding of the third gym member’s sandbag workout lulls his heart into a slower, steadier pace. Music in its own right. He wants to hum along to the drumbeat of the man’s fists, wants to dance. ( _Swing_ , he’d once scrawled into the green notebook. A subsequent YouTube search had entertained him for hours.)

Instead he attacks his own bag, hurling his stress and his fears into its worn leather surface with abandon. With each successive blow he can practically feel the tension in his muscles drain away, only to be replaced with something else entirely: a cool, pulsing energy that he’s felt a only few times before—at least, that he can recall for sure. A result of the serum, maybe.

He’s gone over those leaked files so many times now that all of the chemical equations have blurred together in his head. Then again, it has been quite some time since his last review session. Perhaps, one day, he'll not need to look back at all.

He nearly starts upon realizing that his and the other boxer’s rhythms have fallen in sync. Not matching so much as coordinating, their hits threaded intricately between one another to form an energizing beat he could never have tapped out alone. It’s driving, it’s lilting, it encourages him to pick up his feet. After holding out for as long as he can, he gives in and glances to his right.

The other man isn’t punching the bag; he’s annihilating it. His form is pure motion, exquisitely timed kicks interjecting tight, efficient swings of fists and elbows and knees. Artwork in its own right. It’s a breathtaking display, literally; before he knows it, his lungs burn.

He almost drops his side of their duet. Almost. But after ripping his gaze away—a heroic feat in and of itself—he doubles down on his own bag, somehow re-energized. The thing will rip beneath his hands yet. Even in that skull-splitting mode he enters before a proper threat, he doesn’t have the other man’s agility or grace, not at all. Still, he has his own well of endurance, and carries no shortage of muscle.

Their song ends only with the sudden call from one of the two other customers as they step down from the boxing ring. “È tutto tuo!”

The ring, he infers. He has come to understand that those who lay eyes upon him have a tendency to assume he is one of them, speaks like one of them. He belongs nowhere, belongs everywhere. For better or worse, he comes across as automatically familiar, no matter where he is, no matter what he's done. They think him a backpacker, perhaps, of the younger, hostel-hopping crowd. In any case, his Italian isn't bad.

“Salve,” he calls back as they gather their duffel bags and wave goodbye. The metal door snaps shut behind them, leaving him alone with—

“Lo vuoi?” The other boxer’s voice rolls through his nerves, velvety and warm. He turns to face the man, feigning aloofness to the best of his ability. But it’s _tough_.

First of all, some frigid part of his base brain jumps into action. There it is again, that hand over his forehead, pushing him back, down onto the gurney _—_

_Stay calm. Look at him. He's no spy. Look._ He looks.

Familiar or no, the man’s smile is slight, but his eyes radiate some dazzling force he cannot bring himself to name. It’s inviting, it’s straightforward, it’s—

_—charming little fella, no matter how tough you try to—_

He probably should write that down. It’s blue notebook material, an ear-memory. But he has no desire to look away from the man at present. None whatsoever. He nods in affirmative. “Certo.” 

_See. It’s that easy_. Of course he can speak to other people, can engage with them. This is good practice. _Baby steps, Becca—_

They both approach the empty ring at the same pace, their footsteps alternating smoothly. After ducking between the ancient elastic ropes, he decides on a few ground rules. No punching with the left. No blocking with the left. No cutting loose.This guy has done nothing to him, after all. He’s a civilian looking for some practice rounds. Nothing more. _Stay calm. Stay calm_.

His sparring partner starts them off, moving slowly at first, all but guiding their circling paths. Then the first few strikes fly. He predicts them easily, can practically see the man’s entire musculature beneath his skintight shirt and leggings. Without a doubt, the man is incredibly fit. Beyond that, something in the cut of his profile strikes him as familiar. Not that jolting familiarity inherent in the faces of his past, those demons gnawing at the edges of his sanity. This is different—a milder uncanniness, one beguiling him back into the present, away from those ghouls and their groping hands. Back to a world he can trust. 

Still, he cannot shake the suspicion that the palpitations of his heart stem from something beyond anaerobic activity. It's a tightrope he has to walk. Lean too far toward the past and he'll snap. Lose himself in the present, and he's vulnerable. Could be in danger. Possibly.

Soon enough, the rate of their exchange speeds up. He begins to vary his dodging and parrying techniques, switching his footing on the fly. Begins hitting back from different angles, actively seeking out openings, finding few. This guy is _good_. Fast, lithe, flexible, his glancing blows feather-soft.  _He's checking me._

And before he knows it, they’re dancing. His partner has the offensive edge, swooping in as though from all sides at once. It's exhilarating, this rare chance to let his limbs fly without the agonizing kill-or-be-killed undertone usually accompanying it. For once he can finally begin to appreciate his own skills, can critique himself on a task more complex than _threat elimination_. It's not the  _what_ that consumes him now, so much as the  _how._

He’s sidestepping, ducking, parrying with his flesh arm, always his flesh arm, always holding back by that single degree, but only by that much. In comes a knee from below, an elbow from above, two rapid-fire right hooks, a swift uppercut, each perfectly formed and near-perfectly delivered, always a hair's breadth from bruising him.

In time, he finds an opening.

”Oof,” his partner exhales, all but leaping back from the direct blow. _“Bello.”_

"Grazie." Why the hell has his face flushed so quickly? He already knows he’s good. But now, he realizes, so does the other man.  _He sees me._

They’re back in it, and the rhythm returns. Their feet scarcely touch the ring’s springy floor. Back and forth, in and out, one close call after another and it’s intoxicating. He can’t remember the last time he’s thrown his energy at another person without already knowing the outcome of its landing. _Need to do this more often._

However much time passes before they’re both breathing heavily, he cannot say. There’s plenty of fight left in him, of course; he’s nowhere near that hair-raising approach, that one-way drop into static-riddled void. He knows all too well that the instant he crosses that line, his partner will die, and quickly.

At least, he’s pretty sure. But the longer they fight, the more he suspects that the other man is holding back as well. He spots an instant’s hesitation here, an opening of his own there, one that his partner surely cannot miss yet ignores nonetheless. It’s as though the other man is testing him, is—

_—ther examination may be required. Adjust the testing schedule accordingl—_

Worse than his opponent's clean hit to his stomach are those words, that voice. Red notebook material. It's in that brief second that the floor beneath him opens up and swallows him whole, a sharp-toothed maw with a will of its own—

_Not today, pal._ He has teeth, too. Dropping to one knee, he plants his right fist into the ground, memorizes the worn texture of the ring's mat. _Not today._

“Tutt'okay?!” He looks up to find that his partner’s face is stricken with something altogether too close to distress. The boxer looks worried—no. Looks alarmed.

He inhales sharply. Realizes that he’s since backed away, far away, up against the ropes. He feigns a smile, nods. Struggles to slow his breathing, loosens his muscles. Waves with one hand. “Sì. Sì.”

His partner waits patiently, hands on his thighs, sweat-glistening brows drawn in concern. Actual concern, over him, a stranger.

No. There’s no mistaking it at this point. He doesn’t know the man’s name, but they have something now. One hour's history. More than enough for the black notebook.

He heaves a sigh, straightening his spine before leaning back to rest his arms along the top rope. Grins, much wider this time. He’s getting better at this. He's growing braver. “Come si chiama?”

The other man’s face softens, nearly into a smile. He stands up straight, begins removing his gloves and hand wraps. “Luke. Luke Charles.” The ever-turning gears of his language training attribute the man's accent to a Bantu tongue, perhaps Swahili, with the telltale clip of UK English. His own likely calls the States to mind, somewhere in the northeastern region. “È tu?”

Oh.

He’d never gotten that far in making his cover. He's hilariously, impossibly unprepared. Just this once. But he can think of one name. “James.” He prays his partner doesn’t press for anything further.

His prayers are answered; in lieu of asking for a surname, Luke beams. He—James, now, he supposes—feels his eyes sting. Luke’s widening smile is enthralling, and more disarming than any hit to the stomach, no matter how solid. It’s unbearable, how he can’t look away.

To his surprise, Luke holds out his right hand. “Lo stesso tempo domani?”

_Tomorrow_. And here he had planned on skipping town entirely. It’s laughable, almost, how close he’d come to missing out on this—this—what’s a suitable word—?

_—havin’ a regular ball down there, aren’tcha, B—_

James breaks into a wide smile, his first genuine one in recent memory. “Domani.” He shakes with his own right hand. Luke's is surprisingly soft, and James can detect that he typically wears one large ring.

They stride together into the locker room, again with the perfect clockwork of alternating footfalls. James checks on his backpack—still there. Notebooks intact. He jots down what he can before pulling out a change of clothing.

_See? It’s fine. Stay calm. Stay calm._

By the time he’s stepped out of his shower stall, Luke has left the building. 

James hazards a guess that this is how  _missing someone (green notebook, 2 November 2014, Kaprun, 23:18)_ feels, and he hates it.

Still, there's always tomorrow.

* * *

“Lynne, you’re off until tomorrow. Good work.”

“Wha—tomorrow?”

“Same time as today. Get some rest.”

“But did you locate him?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.” He knows better than to divulge any details at this moment. His head is _everywhere,_ and therefore untrustworthy.  

Monica sounds close to exploding. “And?!”

_And... I can't do this. Not now. Not yet._ “He’s right where I want him. We will proceed with the plan.”

She heaves a sigh but voices no protest. “…Understood. Lynne out.”

T'Challa reenters the embassy the same way he'd left it. He finds that S’yan has ordered room service while reviewing the summit minutes. “You think you have a handle on the soldier's fighting style, then?”

_Soldier._ Somehow, T'Challa already prefers this word to  _asset_. It's more accurate, he tells himself. _That's why._  

He carefully places the suit pieces back into their respective compartments, working his jaw as he puts words to images. “I had a taste. Be prepared to fly home tomorrow evening.”

“I see.” S’yan sips from his china teacup. “You seem invigorated.”

Does he? T'Challa snaps the solid case shut and resets its digital locks. “The notion of apprehending the perpetrator invigorates me.” Tomorrow cannot come soon enough. 

His head is still everywhere. So many conflicting signals from so little interaction.  _James_ , he had called himself. Right after that shutdown, of sorts. At the time, T'Challa had fully assumed he'd blown his cover, had braced himself for an entirely different type of fight. Had even plotted his route out to retrieve his gauntlets. All for naught.

Pieces of the equation still fit together, sure. But the equation now has far too many variables for his tastes. The—the _soldier's_  behavior had been all wrong, had in no way seemed characteristic of a mass murderer on the run. That peculiar earnestness in the quirking of his lips had thrown him off, and something in the—in that man's  _eyes_ —

“Hmph.” His uncle chuckles softly. “Time alone will defend that assertion." 

T'Challa shrugs and turns toward the door, his thoughts threatening to spill from his head by way of his face. "Goodnight, uncle. I'll be up before five." He realizes that the prospect of rest no longer disgusts him utterly. A greater battle looms yet,he supposes.

"May Bast watch over your sleep, majesty.” He can detect the warmth of S'yan's smile beaming onto the back of his neck.  _And the spirit of your blessed father,_ he need not have added.

Back in the suite's central room, B’Tumba has already crashed onto the sofa bed without having removed his suit, shivering every so often beneath the A/C vent. T’Challa pulls a thick blanket from the high linen closet and gently throws it across the young man's prone form. 

He showers and moisturizes thoroughly before retiring to the larger bedroom, trying every way he can to clear his mind, to settle it. But unending visions of J—of the _soldier_ —plague him, an influx of raw data in dire need of sorting. How the man had refrained from using his left arm, the metal one. The way his eyes had seemed to drink in T'Challa's movements, as though he were living water. That exquisite pink hue pluming his cheeks once T'Challa had praised him. The subtle quivering of his whisper-soft voice in the few instances he'd spoken.  How—how  _lost,_ he had seemed.

All the better, T'Challa consoles himself, to bring him in for questioning. All the more reason to complete his hunt. 

It is only after he slips beneath the sheets, unconsciousness clouding his vision, that one last thought crosses his mind. 

_Soldier… you are mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the MCU, Wakanda is located [here](http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/5/58382/1407600-im22.jpg). [This screencap from CACW](https://67.media.tumblr.com/117424790d8c952cff129000735fdaa8/tumblr_inline_o72tp6EKrl1spen9y_540.png) confirms that it borders between South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and two unlabeled countries, one of which I suspect may be Niganda in-universe.  
> While T'Challa and T'Chaka do speak in a real-world language, Xhosa, in the film (rather than a made-up one, thank hell), it still strikes me odd that they'd use a tongue [almost entirely confined to South Africa](http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/maps/lss_eth.jpg) when Wakanda is nowhere nearby and has been completely isolated on top of that. So until such as time as an explanation is provided in canon (so at least until the Black Panther movie drops lmao) I may stick with Swahili or comics-canon Hausa.  
> //man was this chapter fluffy wtf


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

  **ATLANTA**

Monica catches the fuckers on accident. Not cool.

Better than nothing, no shit, but far from acceptable. Winning by sheer luck always means that someone somewhere needs firing, stat. Probably her, this time. For what once could have been a clean extraction is now compromised by the presence of a small army—platoon?—whatever.

On a whim, she had tuned into Bucharest polizei chatter the minute her alarm had gone off. She hadn't even gotten out of bed yet when a rookie let slip that their patrol would need to account for the big GSG9 deployment at 1500 hours, or what would be 8am Atlanta time.

"We've got multiple units inbound," she presently half-yawns into her headset. Their typical Friday rush notwithstanding, not a single member of Ebrik's staff has so much as glanced in her general direction. By this point they collectively know better. Or so Monica tells herself. 

She sits with her back to the wall, facing the little coffee shop's front picture windows with a clear view of the counter, customer line and traffic-clogged street beyond. Three drained espresso cups sit further down her long table, just beyond her arm's reach, but the rest of the chairs are empty and will stay that way. There is no disputing her claim; she has her fighting face on and nobody wants to invite that amount of drama into their life this early in the morning. The larger of her two laptops nearly takes up the table's entire width, and the din of its overclocked cooling fan is, conveniently for her, somewhat unconducive to conversation.

"There's a gap in their coverage on the southwest end of the block. You got a visual on the _asset?"_

She's done some digging since last they spoke.  _You really thought you could keep that from me, huh._ Upon making that discovery, she hadn't known whether to feel more insulted or entertained by T'Challa's lapse in judgment with that call. But she knows to wait until later to berate him; they're both a little busy right now. Besides, nobody's perfect.

"Not yet," T'Challa replies, his response thin with some peculiar discomfort. Normally the cadence of his snare-drum _Ts_  and whisper-soft timbre risk beguiling Monica into a calm stupor. Even now his two words already aid in focusing her caffeine-fueled jitter. But he sounds strained in a way she's not sure she's ever picked up on before. Perhaps from finding out his omission of truth the night before had been for nothing?

Perhaps not.  _I didn't wake up this morning_ _with one parent gone._ Not to her knowledge, anyways. At least her cousin is among the recovering.

Monica knots her Havana twists out of her face before squinting at the satellite reading. "And I'm detecting an anomaly on the roof." She can't enhance the quality of the feed—this isn't a damn Hollywood movie—but she can still blow the pixels up. Just enough to extrapolate further. "Looks like...a person?" With that much radio interference, she'd expected an electromagnetic pulse generator, a small one, perhaps planted by the _asset_ himself.

Nope. Just one person, shifting their weight from side to side as though in boredom, or, more likely, impatience.

"Yes. Male, mid-thirties, some powerful equipment on his back. I hear him relaying the polizei's movements to whoever is inside the apartment with—with the _asset_."

 _Say what now?_ Monica checks the volume of her second laptop and headset; both are on full. "That so? 'Cause your your mics aren't picking up any—ah." She remembers last-second that her old schoolmate's natural hearing far outmatches his HUD's meager microphones. Meager, state-of-the-art microphones. "Two of the units now converging on the apartment. Think they sent someone in to negotiate first? Unarmed messenger?"

"They don't look to be coordinating with the GSG9. And now he's mentioning incoming vehicles. How many are in the area?"

Monica quickly zooms her  _sky-eye_ out. "Over a dozen, spread out in a half-mile radius on all sides. Closer to thirty within a two-mile radius, including the highway tunnels belowground. Plotted his escape routes yet?"

"Two entrances, give or take wall density. He may decide to blast his way out. They have him surrounded." As T'Challa curses under his breath, Monica winces and thanks Bast that it never once occurred to her to join the most elite SWAT team in Europe. No envying those sorry asses right now.

Movement onscreen; while the SWAT troops take their positions, the man on the roof— _what._ Monica squints, not quite trusting herself. No, he's literally taken flight _,_ now swooping in circles low over the complex, like a bird.Like a falcon. _Rise Up,_ she laughs inwardly. But his gliding will undoubtedly attract air support from the polizei. "Majesty, they're moving in."

T'Challa's suit-sensors betray an ever-so-slight spike in his pulse. "Ready."

 _Good._ Because all hell then breaks loose.

SWAT teams swarm the place like so many gnats descending upon a prone victim not yet dead. Their radios reveal to her their positions on the building's stairwell, from the narrow balcony beneath the roof's eaves, from vehicles on the ground far below. Hell, even the height of the building T'Challa stands upon is far lower than that of the balcony.

But whatever's taking place within the apartment clearly is not going according to the GSG9's plan; several uniformed bodies fly through doorways, down stairwells, two or three onto the balcony. From the Panther HUD she can hear gunfire and what sounds like a battering ram. Within seconds, a much tinier black speck flies across her screen. T'Challa inhales sharply. "He's thrown something to a few meters away from my position. Looks like a bag."

"I see it." On her second laptop, Monica pulls up the live feed from his suit's HUD: there, a dark backpack bouncing down the roof like a stone tossed across water. It's skidded to a landing unsettlingly close to where T'Challa waits, and looks far from full.  _Cash and weapons_ , she hazards. The thing emits no pulses that her satellites can detect. Even the apartment's clean, to her chagrin. "Think he's spotted you?" 

"Negative. The polizei have held his attention. He's taken out half a dozen since they broke in."

"If you say so."  _But why throw the backpack there? Does he intend to come back for it later, or think he can make it to the roof from the ground fl—_

And then the soldier jumps.

"Fuck," Monica yelps, drawing attention from the handful of baristas and customers for the first time that morning. She shakes her head and motions for another espresso. _Gonna be the longest day of my life._

"On him," T'Challa murmurs just loudly enough for his mic to pick up. Monica zooms back out and clocks the different fighters on the scene; if any of them interfere with T'Challa's extraction of the _asset_ , then there will be hell to pay. After all, in a perfect world, the damn  _asset_ would never have been born to begin with. But in this world, it is the Panther's duty to bring the killer in, and thus her duty to clear the path before him of distractions.

An instant later, the view through T'Challa's HUD arrests her attention. Some sliver in the back of her brain reminds her that this is possibly the most rare privilege in the world, to see through the eyes of a Black Panther in action. How lucky she is, to witness this firsthand, and not for the first time.

The world seems to abruptly disappear from beneath his feet, contorting and quaking in rapid succession. Gut-wrenching, the dizzying angles of his flips and dodges, and the _asset_ quickly falls off guard. Each time the killer's haggard face cuts into view, not matter how briefly, Monica feels a bone-deep urge to spit onto her screen. She hurls herself at the  _asset_ vicariously through her king's lunges and kicks, willing her own life force to manifest in the Black Panther's victory. They're all owed that much.  _Fuck him_ up!

After a furious exchanges of strikes, T'Challa finally lands a blow powerful enough to knock the  _asset_ back into the metal casing of an A/C unit. The plating buckles behind him as though he were a battering ram, a cannonball, something far denser than mere flesh and bone. For all Monica knows, he may well be.  _How far up's that vibranium go, huh?_ She bats the thought away.  _Can always hack into his prison cell's CCTV feed later._ That, or the autopsy file.

Just as intriguing is the range of expressions on the killer's face as the Black Panther works. There's the grim determination Monica had anticipated, then panic and utter terror as he had slammed back into the casing—and then, for a hot second, something else entirely. It's as he bolts up from the ground, ducking low in attempt to dodge T'Challa's swift backhand, when something flashes through his face that Monica can't quite put to words. The next thing she knows, T'Challa's right-hand claws are lodged in the wall where the  _asset's_ head had been a split-second before.  _Fast mother_ , Monica scowls. 

But T'Challa is also quick. Especially on foot. Before him, the killer's heavy steps look practically leaden. Monica can all but hear T'Challa's rapid calculation of the killer's acceleration and possible routes, where he'd most likely try to peel off, and— _oof_ , that was too fast for her. T'Challa had bounded ahead, pulled a running-leap wall kick to reverse his trajectory, and propelled himself into facing the killer once again, spiking him with an overhead claw strike.  _Taste it,_ Monica wills, unable to keep from smiling. Since when has she developed such a bloodlust...? 

"Espresso number four, Mo'," Ibrahim laughs as he sets the cup down behind her laptop. "You know we don't supposed to do table service here, hmm?"

If Monica had a dollar every time he'd said those exact words to her, she could have already purchased the café for herself. _Then I'd own the whole building, not just the labs upstairs._  Well, save for the other ground-floor shops. She mutes her end of the comm and shoots the barista a dry glare. "Just call my name next time, fool! I can walk ten feet." She's not even wearing heels today.

"But then I don't get to hear your beautiful voice. So, whatcha watching? Bourne movie? Y'know, I kinda like that Matt Damon dude—"

"Just beta-testing a video game," she drolls with a matching eye-roll. "Still got some clipping bugs to iron out in the cutscenes." ...Are her eyes fooling her, or had T'Challa fucking suplexed the _asset? That's an awfully tight close-up shot of his abdomen otherwise._ The burgundy folds of the killer's shirt tense and stretch, hinting at an impressive set of muscles underneath, before T'Challa rolls off of him. "Devs putting way too much time into the textures and not enough into the animation, obviously."

"Ha. What I'd give to test a video game all day 'stead of this shit. Lemme know how it goes." Ibrahim stretches then walks off, thankfully right before T'Challa thrusts his claws toward the _asset's_ face. Somewhere in all that, the killer had grabbed a loose piece of lumber. He holds the thin board in front of his face in a laughable attempt at defense. The thing snaps all too easily beneath those vibranium claws, splitting cleanly into two pieces that fly out of sight. Then there is only that haggard face, those terror-stricken blue eyes ripe for—okay, that was anticlimactic.

 _What's holding him back?_ It slowly dawns on Monica that the _asset's_ hands are wrapped tightly around T'Challa's wrists, visibly straining from keeping those glinting blades at bay. Half an inch more and he'd be skewered.

Even though T'Challa is positioned behind the crown of his head, making it appear upside down in the HUD feed, Monica still picks up in the soft lines of the  _asset's_  face, that subtle—that _thing._  Whatever it is, it perfectly accompanies the bitterness of her espresso as she tosses it back.  _Hurt_ springs to mind, hilariously, but even that isn't quite it. Sadness? ... _Betrayal?_   She wants to laugh, but doing so could invite Ibrahim back over, and he's this close to having seen too much already. No, this is dinner and a show for one. All in theme.

But then she spots an incoming problem. "Majesty, helicopter on your six. They're about to fire."

Yet T'Challa continues to press against the _asset's_ grip in spite of her words, as though not having heard her at all—oh.  _Fucking—_

By the time Monica flips her microphone back on, the chopper has already begun shooting. She checks the structural integrity sensors on the Panther suit—nothing threatening to pierce the metal, by any means, and at the edges of the HUD feed she can spot deflected bullets making craters in the concrete floor. After one pathetic, limp-legged kick, the  _asset_ turns around altogether and bolts. T'Challa whips about to face the helicopter, confirms it to be a GSG9 craft: not exterior-mounted armaments, either, but of the human-operated automatic variety instead. 

"He's on the move." Monica's _sky-eye_  follows the killer as he sprints toward the opposite edge of the roof. After having seen the man's previous jump, this next one to street level would be nothing. "Heading northeast, toward the main thoroughfare."

"I have him. Disrupt the traffic signals if you can. I need as few of those SWAT trucks in my way as possible."

"Already on it." But it will take longer than she likes; Bucharest Traffic Control uses suspiciously up-to-date encryption. Still, the current amount of congestion on the arterial roads knocks out the likelihood of over half of the vehicles intervening within the next five minutes. But it's Monica's last sidelong glimpse of the rooftop that warrants a slight heart attack on her end. "Majesty, you're not going to believe who's right behind you."

T'Challa has already made a quick glance over his own shoulder. Sure enough, a man in an altogether different uniform is hot on his heels. A red, white and blue uniform. The Panther sighs in amusement. "Logic suggests the winged man is also an Avenger. Tell me whether there are more waiting nearby. If they are not working with the polizei, I must assume hostility."

Monica knows he's right. His logic is solid and the Avengers have a track record of interfering with international politics, and not always for the better. Especially as of late. But it's Captain _fucking_ America, the world's toughest super soldier. Superhero. She'd purchased a goddamn poster of him the year before, the proceeds having gone to a Sokovian relief fundraiser held by the Avengers after the incident. She skims a Wikipedia article. "Oh, hell."

"What is it, Lynne?"

"He and B—the _asset_ go way back, Majesty." The winged one—the  _Falcon_  ( _seriously?),_  thank you Wikipedia—appears every so often on her satellite feed, drawing fire from the two choppers but not yet closing in on the chase. "Something tells me these two aren't here to escort him to the U.N." 

"Agreed. The Captain has just now taken out several GSG9 troopers, so, hostility confirmed. Small wonder they failed to apprehend the soldier in his apartment."

Monica can only shake her head, groaning; this is the opposite of what they need just now. T'Challa pitted against one enhanced fighter is more than a fair fight, but two working in tandem, with at least one other Avenger on the scene?  _Should've stayed in bed this morning, Lynne._  Pfft, no, even that hadn't saved her.

She swallows and continues to follow the killer's path down the street as he navigates concrete planters and bike racks at top speed. In the HUD feed, he continually glances back toward the Black Panther, which even Monica knows is a runner's no-no. Does the fucker want to get caught, or what?!

By now T'Challa is only one block behind him. He dashes toward the next navpoint Monica sends his way—the railed arterial road median, open to the highway tunnel beneath. His form is of course far more graceful and efficient; he propels himself over pedestrians with ease, clings to trees and walls, bounds ever closer to his prey. Behind him, Monica notices that even Captain America can't quite keep up.  _Maybe he does have a shot._  

"The  _asset_ has hopped the railing," she notes, feeling her blood run cold. Best idea ever, a fight in the middle of a goddamn freeway. "My visibility will be limited to your HUD while you're in there. And something's approaching your coordinates at mach one. It's too small to be a jet, so... be careful, Majesty."

T'Challa laughs through his nose. "I will make no such promise." He dives into the tunnel.

Monica runs a search on her phone for what time the nearest bar will open, and then texts _guess where I spotted superfling just now_ to Janice. She's soon going to need something far stronger than coffee, the way this morning is going. 

* * *

**BUCHAREST**

Not a second goes by that he doesn't spend mentally kicking himself. He _knew_ this would happen. It's ridiculous, in hindsight.

But he'd spent that whole morning in a surreal dream state, in an alternate reality. One where he was—the word _person_ flutters through his head, but that can't be right, that's not him.

Still, he'd awoken feeling far more rested than usual. The sunshine filtering through his dusty glass door panels and narrow window had seemed brighter, more golden, more lovely than the newspapers covering them should have allowed. He'd felt hungry after doing calisthenics, had showered and scrubbed more firmly than usual, and had made a hot breakfast for himself using up the last of his eggs. After compulsively popping an entire Toblerone bar _(yum)_ , he had then felt brave enough to step outside, to finally greet a neighbor on the stairwell as he headed down to the farmers' market. The pleasantly surprised look on the elderly woman's face had almost made him laugh. 

In those brief, luscious hours, he had allowed himself the luxury of a name. _James_. How desperately he'd found himself wanting to hear that word, just once, on the other man's tongue. How desperately, in spite of all logic, he finds himself still wanting that.

And so he again kicks himself.  _This is your fault. You fell for it. You fell for it._  

Presently his feet carry him almost automatically down his preplanned escape route. Snagging a vehicle is all too easy, even one heading in the wrong direction. It's all he can do to let his muscle memory jolt him forward; his body is working fine, even if his mind is scattered.

The next task, once he'd restocked his groceries, would have been to wash his clothes. Had he not glimpsed the shopkeeper run off, not read the headline, not seen his own face in print, he'd have fully planned on walking back into that gym this afternoon, looking less like a backpacker and more like—he'd wanted to look—look good—he'd wanted—

Of course it had all been a lie. 

No, not a lie. A ruse. The perfect trap. That agent the polizei had undoubtedly assigned to entrap him had done his damn job alright. Luke Charles was _good_.

Even now, he himself should by all rights be dead, or unconscious, or at least bolted to the floor of one of those vans. If it hadn't been for—if not for—

_Steve—_

No. He knows better than to get his own hopes up. If Captain America himself had opted to work against the polizei, then that was on him and his own judgment. The guy could take care of himself. He'd have to, now.

His more present problem is the—the man on his heels. The hunter. All too apt, for never before has he felt quite like this, so very much like prey. 

Other drivers panic and yell, swerving their vehicles aside as he cuts across the thick-pillared highway median. The motorcycle feels alien beneath his hands, feels incorrect. His body is used to a very different model, after all, but he's hardly in the position to complain. It works and has a nearly-full tank.  _Get me out of here._  

Predictably, it's within seconds that he hears emergency sirens. He charts their distances and accelerations, how many likely await up ahead, best-case scenarios resulting from civilian traffic blockage and his own luck, worst-case scenarios involving that hunter. 

No. The real worst case scenario has nothing to do with his own death or capture. Instead, it's a scenario he's nearly witnessed firsthand before, only once in recent memory. One he'd worked terrifically hard to pull off. If he hadn't heard those words—if he hadn't jumped into the Potomac after— _no._

Against his better judgment, he glances behind. He panics.

Mere meters behind him is the same attacker from the rooftop. The hunter in a metal catsuit is alarmingly fast on foot, outpacing even the SWAT vans, and he can already feel the world closing in on him, as though the tunnel were collapsing.  _Why the hell did you think you'd lost him?_  This man clearly had him pegged from the start; no way in hell would he be dissuaded by a few bullets, not with armor that dense. He knows vibranium when he sees it.

It's the fluidity of the man's movements that keeps his nerves on edge. Something in his gait strikes him as achingly familiar, but he can't determine the martial arts style the man uses. His base processes cannot pinpoint how, exactly, the man can fling himself about with such maddening ease. This is all wrong.  _He's not human._

And he, he's terrified.

But there is light ahead. The tunnel hasn't collapsed, not yet, not outside of his head. If he can make it to the next mouth beneath the thoroughfare median overhead, he's got a sticky grenade with the hunter's name on it, whatever it is. 

Yet against all odds, it's Luke Charles' velvety voice that rolls through his nerves then and there. _"Barnes!"_  

 _Shit—_ He nearly steers the bike into a wall in shock; the words are far too real, far too close, are in his damn ears, and there is metal clamping his neck. The bike's already reached its top speed, the engine under him threatening to blow; all he can do is fend off or steer with his free hand. But even as he cuts closer to the tunnel wall, the hunter effortlessly maintains his stride; he sprints alongside the motorcycle, on the damn walls, paying no more mind to gravity itself than to his prey's vained struggling.  _How. Who are you. What the hell._

He hates the hunter's elegant full-body leaps and twists, hates how easily the maintains his iron-clad grip. Hates himself for nonetheless admiring the display of skill. 

Within seconds, the hunter boards his bike, perching himself right behind him atop the rear fender. He can't help but scream, just a little, and still any noise he makes is lost to the din of the bike's revving, the SWAT sirens, the screeching of tires. So why does he hear Luke's voice so clearly?

 _"Give up."_ Italian? English? Romanian? He understands the sentiment without fully processing the sounds. It's a form of torture, one bypassing his skin and muscle and branding deep into his nerves. 

But there's no mistaking it; the agent Luke Charles and this hunter are one. Their sparring session in the gym feels like lifetimes ago, now.

How pathetic he must have looked, falling apart from the first blow, when the man had been using only a fraction of his true strength, of his full agility. He feels like a damn plaything, a toy. _This might as well be a game to him. Am I the trophy?_

With the motorcycle's suspension thrown completely off, he loses control of the steering. There is no control, not of anything, not anymore. Maybe there never was. He feels himself spiraling into gray maelstrom in more ways than one. A violent lurch topples the bike over to one side, nearly off the tires, as the—as _Luke_  tilts them both hard to the left. He braces his own arm against the pavement, his metal hand igniting a thick flurry of sparks as the bike continues forward. With his other arm, he somehow musters enough strength to elbow Luke in the head. "Get _off!"_

That does the trick; Luke grunts from the blow, as though in surprise more than pain. The impact promptly flings him off the back of the bike, and he falls directly into the path the closest SWAT car.

He doesn't stick around to watch Luke's landfall; he's got to get out of this damn tunnel. There's a safehouse in Buzău that he's pretty sure is still stocked and armed. Failing that, there's always Cluj-Napoca, where he can easily forge his way onto a plane after altering his appearance. It's not like he's new to this. There have been fights before, if not any so brutal as this one. There will be fights again. That, he can put money on.

And this time, he won't make the same mistake. No more fraternizing. No more chats. No more sparring with handsome tourists. His gut aches at that last sentiment, as though he's merely running away from something that had been real in the first place. 

 _No one wants you. No one wants you. Not alive._ Not until all this crap blows over and the true perpetrator for that U.N. blast is found. But after that? There's always a tomorrow. The light at the end of the tunnel beckons him, in more ways than one.  _Almost there—_

A dull  _TH-THUD_ not far behind himsends his heart rate skyrocketing. He whips his head around to spot Luke crouched, arms splayed for balance, upon the hood of the closest SWAT van. _Round two,_ he can too easily hear in that same voice. For all he knows, he does. 

 _Come at me._ He revs his bike, vowing to no longer look back. The grenade's in his flesh hand. It isn't a particularly powerful one, but he's held onto it since the day he walked up from the banks of the Potomac, reborn. In a way, this is his goodbye. Steve's visit had been unexpected, had been helpful, even. But he's content to never see him again. To never endanger his life again. _I'm saving you from me. Understand?_  

He tosses the grenade. The thing sticks perfectly to the lip of the tunnel. He hits the button.

 _That's it. We're done._ He rides forward to freedom, flushing from his mind the urge to calculate how many have been injured in this little chase, how many more could be hurt from the tunnel mouth's impending collapse, how much damage he's managed to inflict on Bucharest in the three short weeks he's been hiding here.  _No more._

The blast goes off with even less of a roar than he'd expected. Now he just has the upcoming SWAT vehicles ahead to worry about, and then finding a good enough parking garage to switch vehicles, and then—

_NO—_

He feels the rear tire burst. He  _feels_ it. The rest of the bike flies out from beneath him and he's on the pavement, helplessly rolling across the hot concrete as the thing shudders and skids to a lurching halt. For a split second he can convince himself that explosion shrapnel had pierced the tire, or wayward debris, or a stray bullet— _anything_ but the one, impossible figure now rolling alongside him.

Time slows to a crawl as the world finally quits spinning. He sees smoke and rubble from one end, and too many flashing blue lights at the other. Trapped. He's trapped.

A shadow falls across the middle of his vision; his eyes refocus just in time to settle on the intricate metallic gleaming of the—of Luke's armor. The man stands over him, and all he can see is the grim reaper, here for him alone. Luke raises his right hand, the glinting blades of his claw fully extended. His body still reacts the only way it can, one knee raising defensively, one hand reaching for a grenade that his mind knows it won't find.

This is it. He knows he's already dead. His body just hasn't gotten the message y—

_"Argh—"_

Blinding sunlight floods his vision as the claws fall short once more. As Luke jerks sharply aside beneath the force of two arms thrown around his hips. As two bodies roll together, away from him. The hunter's, and— _Steve._

This isn't real. He's dreaming. This day has been a dream, this life has been a dream. He'll wake up tomorrow in a metal cage, still half-frozen and gone inside. But while it endures, this dream is a fantastic one.  _Steve's here. Steve came back._

But that disgusting wave of joy is immediately cut short as Luke slowly rises to his feet, appraising the sight of Captain America as though having only now noticed his presence. It's almost funny.

The rest of the polizei vehicles approach, pinning them all against the collapsed tunnel. He knows what happens next is going to be messy, and likely to little avail. But what else can he do? He's back on his feet, taking in the scene, planning his strikes. If Steve can hold the hunter off, then he just needs to make it through the— _shit_ , that's a lot of guns. He senses another man landing behind him, as though having fallen from the sky itself. He—oh. He knows this man. He knows those wings. _Wilson_ , his brain informs him.  _You kicked him off a helicarrier that one time._  The list of people who want their revenge on him has no end, at this rate.

_"Stand down now."_

His focus snaps forward again to a much heavier landing. The ground beneath his feet actually quakes from the impact. It's the most heavily-armored man he's ever seen, if there's even a real man in there, with a massive gun mounted on one shoulder. The gun is, of course, trained directly on him. He processes that Steve has lifted one hand before him, as though to hold him back from attacking both this living weapon and the SWAT teams further back. Even with the other Avenger at his six. It's almost funny. It's the least funny. But moments later Steve lowers his hand and returns the shield to its holster on his back. 

 _"Congratulations, Cap,"_ the armored man drawls.  _"You're a criminal."_

 _That makes two of us,_ he thinks, utterly bemused as the polizei encircle him. But to his surprise, Luke raises his own arms, retracts his claws, and reaches to remove his helmet.  _Three of us?_ He doesn't know what to believe anymore.  _Not an agent, then._ Not for the polizei, anyways. The helmet comes off.

There's that gorgeous face he's missed. He doesn't have the energy to pretend otherwise. Luke's clear black eyes practically glitter in the sunlight. His own eyes burn in their sockets. God, he hurts.

They've found him, now. They have him manacled. He's finished. This he can accept. He's done things. Probably deserves whatever they have in mind for him. But all of that pales and dissolves next to the agonizing truth that one single person had caught him so off guard. Had made him believe he could be something more than a murderer on the run. Had ensnared him, more effectively than any of the polizei or Avengers combined. 

 _Who are you,_ he wants to scream. Wants to wail.

His question is answered an instant later, as the metal Avenger turns his attention to Luke and says, of all things,  _"Your highness."_

Oh.

_...Oh._

He is so dead.

* * *

**LAGOS**

Turns out, there's a silver lining in volunteering to get blown to high hell by your own grenade. A pretty great silver lining. 

Now, if only his damn face had regenerated back to the way it was supposed to look. Shit, that would've been gold lining. No, platinum lining, in the thundercloud of a goddamn lifetime. _Hey, a guy can dream._

Brock watches from behind a sewer vent as two guys from containment stomp around the densely-spattered blast site. One eventually plucks his red-stained GPS chip from the cracked pavement with a scowl.

He's pretty sure he recognizes one of them, back from his time in the tank. Bill, or Bud, or something. The other is a blonde guy in serious need of a dental appointment. Either that, or way the fuck more time in rehab. They're both in plainclothes, leather jackets and cargo pants that barely conceal glocks and radios. 

"Man," meth-mouth grumbles, "Ajax is gonna be  _pissed."_

He watches them move out. Unmarked van, no stickers, plates that probably won't lead the understaffed Lagos police anywhere. In time, it's quiet.

Time to find some fucking clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh do I love [aggressive hand-holding](http://67.media.tumblr.com/3db2b24f692087d2d16d246dae074a90/tumblr_o6eftsb21m1qzco77o8_250.gif)!!  
> Thanks to MoonIsNeverAlone, ChocolateOctopus, HyperRaspberry, Anonymogeronimo and Korvidae_Rex for your sweet and helpful comments!! xoxoxo


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is just a breather chapter before the intense and action-packed BS that will be next chapter!! Hold onto your butts kids.  
> Thanks to GoodSir and rablacksun for your kind comments!!

* * *

**GERMANY**

T'Challa's head swims.

He's more than accustomed to learning and digesting great deals of information at a high rate. He's been trained for it. He knows he's expected to handle this with his usual charm and grace.

And, to those not looking very carefully, this is precisely what he does.

Long after the Captain's voice and lungs run dry, long after T'Challa has surely heard every conceivable detail of all twenty-seven years of James Buchanan Barnes' early life, it is the soldier Wilson who makes a crack. "And, trust me, this was the abridged version. The guy has a one-man fan club doing the work of a hundred."

T'Challa casts a glance toward the soldier through the corner of his eye. "Says the man who aided in Barnes' resisting arrest."

"Hey, you can't blame me," Wilson counters. "The guy shredded my favorite pair of wings and broke one of my ribs, and that was  _before_ I had to fight some Neo-Nazi fuck in an exploding skyscraper. But I did get a close-up view of Barnes while we were up on the helicarrier." He takes a deep breath. "It wasn't the same person you fought today. Not by a long shot. Whatever it was HYDRA did to his head, shit was effective. He nearly killed Cap over the Potomac, and now..."

"He wasn't in control of himself in D.C.," Rogers cuts in, his eyes alight. His voice has thinned to the point of near-breakage. "Like Rumlow said—they'd messed with his brain, scrambled him somehow. But it's been two years since he was in their clutches. He even—he knew my name. He remembers me now. The U.N. has to see reason."

 _Best of luck with that one, Captain._  "And the string of HYDRA-related deaths last year, that too was a different man?"

Wilson inhales sharply. "You knew about that?"

T'Challa grins as Rogers leans forward in the seat next to his. "What?"

"Beyond all the encryption, HYDRA even encoded the content of their databanks," Wilson replies, shooting his fellow Avenger an apologetic look. "I mean, think about it. They were perfectly interlaced within SHIELD's. It's not like they were gonna label every mission report document with 'how and when and where we murdered so-and-so.' There were serial numbers for everything, cover names, doublespeak. Even after Nat uploaded all of it to the net, we've barely scratched the surface of just how far their shit went."

"Yeah, yeah, but—what about last year?!"

"The  _asset_ decided to clean house," T'Challa replies, allowing himself a slight smile. "After—"

_"Don't call him that."_

"Steve," Wilson warns, placing one hand on the Captain's shoulder as though to calm him. It is then that T'Challa recognizes just how dearly Wilson holds Rogers, and smiles in spite of himself. 

 _Protect him from me_ , he wills through his teeth. "My recon team has worked around the clock since that data dump," he continues. "While the rest of the planet saw the senseless murders of beloved public figures, politicians, industry leaders...we connected the dots, so to speak. Your—" He cannot help but laugh out this next part.  _"_ — _friend_ has gone on quite the revenge spree, Captain. As far as we can tell."

"And if I'd known he was hunting down rogue HYDRA officers, I would've helped." It's at this point that Rogers shoots Wilson a look.

T'Challa knows that look. Monica has branded it into his own eyes more often than he'd like to remember.  _As would I have, in another life_ , he refrains from adding aloud. It is for this reason his head swims;  _is the enemy of my enemy not my friend?_

But it's never that simple. He knows this all too well; unlike the iconic  _Captain America_ , the Black Panther is no blunt object, no glorified hitman. One cannot perform heart surgery with a sledgehammer, after all. And rarely has he been required to work beyond Wakanda's natural borders to reach where its king should not have been caught meddling.

Well, now the right hand of the king and left hand of the Panther are both attached to his own wrists. He's begun to sense his life is about to become either far longer, or far shorter. And one option will surely feel quite like the other, if he's not careful.

"Yeah, the U.N. would've totally okayed Captain America murdering a bunch of small-town mayors and hospital donors." Wilson sighs. "Look, Steve. We had a cold trail right up until the bodies started hitting the floor. If we'd made too much noise, Barnes would've gone to ground. Sharon's CIA team might not've triangulated him."

"Maybe. Maybe not. We're never gonna know, are we, Sam—?"

"Maybe I wanted to tell you. And... then Sokovia happened." Wilson gives a quick, joyless grin. His hand remains on Rogers' shoulder. "But the time the dust settled, the assassinations had stopped altogether. Cold turkey."

"You still could've told me."

"I couldn't confirm any of it. Just a hunch. Didn't wanna get your hopes up for nothing." Wilson casts his gaze downward. "I'm sorry, Steve."

Rogers leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and drapes his hand atop Wilson's on his shoulder. Their fingers interlace. "I know you meant well. And—and you didn't have to come with me, today. We would've lost him to the GSG9 if it weren't for you. I wanted to thank you." He grins. "I still want to."

"Even though they detained him? Not much to be thankful for." Wilson grimaces and gives Rogers' shoulder a tight squeeze.

Rogers lifts that hand to his lips. "I have a lot to be thankful for." 

It's a display of affection T'Challa had not entirely anticipated from the two Americans. In a way, he's caught off guard yet again; how is it that these two, both warriors in their own right, their hands and souls stained with blood, can feel so free to love one another in spite of all their baggage? Perhaps, because of it?

A peculiar sting gathers behind his eyes, and he forces himself to look directly ahead, away from that vivid light blooming invisibly between Rogers and Wilson. It's too much for him. His skin and eyes are too raw. He's both entirely too old and still not mature enough to bear witness to that lovely burst of warmth.  _In another life..._   

But it is in this life that his head continues to swim. The matter of the  _asset's_ —the  _soldier's_ —of  _Barnes'_   supposed lucidity comes to a head against the unmistakable footage Monica has tracked. There is no doubt in his mind that Barnes indeed set off the Vienna blast.

The true question, he's finally realized, is not who, nor how, but  _why_.

His blessed father T'Chaka had maintained Wakanda's isolation specifically to keep out the creeping fingers of HYDRA's workings. It had thus been with the fall of the many-headed beast that the mere notion of opening their borders had come to mention. His father's U.N. address had meant to signify the end of an era, the end of white power machinations as all had known them. And now T'Challa knows better.  _Cut off one head, and another shall take its place,_ indeed. Wakanda is no more ready to invite the world in than the world is ready to face the might of his people, he now knows all too well.

Before European meddling, thirteen distinct peoples had coexisted in the mountains and plains and stretches of jungle encapsulating present-day Wakanda. Thirteen peoples, all trading and learning and occasionally fighting with one another whilst still maintaining their individual identities. A neutral ground remained in the center of the thirteen, a desert supporting no long-term life but instead frequent gatherings, multiple attempts at terraforming, intertribal festivities, and a curious _Mound_.

Treaties would be signed and dropped and redeveloped and would in time give way to Letters of Concord, uniting the thirteen into a loose federation. Great care and expense had gone into ensuring long-term sustainability of the thirteen, a perfect ecosystem of life support and technological development. A hotbed of humanity, thriving and rich, tumultuous and lively.  _Utopian_ , frequent visitors would call their system, and centuries later T'Challa had grown up hating the word.

And then they had discovered the true gift of the _Mound._

It was with the subsequent onslaught of outsider military regimes and self-proclaimed holy wars that the thirteen had banded together into a more cohesively-governed unit, falling back into the cramped confines of that desert. Their centuries of stress-testing and the blessed Letters had resulted in neither a totalitarian state nor utter anarchy; instead, the nation _Wakanda_ was born, fully-formed, from only the intense care and pure intent of its inhabitants, with no imperial forces from the outside to muddle its glory.

In the face of annihilation, the Wakandans had endured. Had shouldered their challenges, only to return the might tenfold. Had made the desert sands bloom with living metal, with fruits too numerous to name in a single breath, both literal and figurative. And to this day, Wakanda has not once been conquered by forces outside of the thirteen. It is that thrumming knowledge that pounds through T'Challa's veins even now.

So _why_ had Barnes committed this atrocity? He's already considered the upfront possibilities: that HYDRA remnants lurk even within the ranks of the U.N. itself—unlikely, but not implausible—or that the blast had gone off prematurely due to the polizei's tampering. Just as unlikely; Barnes' past hits were each so professionally executed that it had taken months to even label him as a suspect for each.

No, this was no coincidence. His father had been Barnes' target, no matter his clear-cut stance against colonialism, imperialism, eventual Naziism and apartheid. Against HYDRA.

No matter the admittedly heart-rending look in the killer's eyes that had caught T'Challa so off guard the night before, that ache of vulnerability, that bitter telltale sting. No matter his reluctance to fight back during their chase that morning. He had defended himself, of course, as he'd run, but not once had he come at the Panther with anything near lethal. Not the calculating venom of a predator, but the frenzied bolting of prey. 

Still, T'Challa reassures himself, he had  _run_. 

So either the string of 2015 assassinations had merely been Barnes' way of covering loose ends, or... or, in spite of all knowledge, two _very_ different people had committed these—

"So..." Wilson's voice interrupts his thoughts. "You like cats?"

"Sam." Even Rogers has picked up on the sudden spike in animosity within that small van. T'Challa surely needs not remind the two that, out of everyone seated within these steel confines, only he has a distinct combination of international immunity and heightened biological—

"What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat and you don't wanna know more?" 

T'Challa can't even speak for hilarity. It's everything he can do to not split into raucous laughter. Not in so very many months has anyone used that tone with him, that carefree attitude, not in his physical presence. Not save for one.  _Assuming he survives this ride, I absolutely must introduce Wilson to Monica._ The two could together revolutionize this dour world as he knows it, could make it wholly a more beautiful place. He'd fund it.

And, evidently, the Captain does wish to know more. "Your suit," he eventually asks, "it's vibranium?"

 _I'm disappointed, Captain._ T'Challa refuses to deign such an obvious question with utter spoon-feeding. "The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations," he replies instead, "a mantle passed from warrior to warrior."

Even if Rogers is still too emotionally compromised to put two and two together, Wilson at least gives a nonplussed nod. T'Challa just so happens to be the fifth in his family's line to bear the weight of the suit. He can only hope to do T'Chaka and S'Yan so proud as they did their forebears.

"And now, because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So..." His lips curl as he envisions the near, near future, and turns to make full eye contact with the Captain. Tension splits those blue-green eyes into darkened fractals. "I ask you, as both warrior and king: how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?"

There is no answer that either of these Avengers could give that will satisfy him. And they all know it.

* * *

**ATLANTA**

"He  _what_."

"You heard me!"

"Oh, my baby. And here I'd thought his old age would've made him a little softer." Janice cracks up. "I get a patient every so often over the age of ninety. All they wanna do is take naps. Wear high-waisted pants. Whining bout how the kids always be on their phones."

"And if superfling were biologically ninety, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Monica pinches the bridge of her nose. There's not enough alcohol on the planet right now. 

 _Did he know I was watching? That had to be why he made for the tunnel._ The  _asset_ had to have known. Otherwise she could never have let the damn Avengers intervene so.

But she could only stare in helpless rage as the U.N.'s precious approved  _enhanced persons_  stepped in. 

Presently she turns her wrist upward and checks her king's GPS pin with her bracelet's keybead. _Still en route to Berlin._ Ugh.

"And if we couldn't have this conversation, I wouldn't've flown you up from Orlando," Monica laughs. "How'd you two meet, anyways? Meant to ask you forever ago."

"Ha." Janice tosses her corkscrew curls over one shoulder. "It started with—say, you remember my old pal Trevor? Croyden kid, got into theater at Oxford, made it onto the CBS show  _Caged Heat_ in the late eighties—"

"The one that failed spectacularly," Monica cuts in, only dully remembering. That particular decade had been wild for both those inside Wakanda's borders and out. By then she'd been assigned to study Stanford and the burgeoning Silicon Valley. "Hold up. Trevor Slattery? The one kept in the Seagate Asylum right now?!"

"Mhm! So—shit, what year was it? 2013? And all the TV hijackings start. The Mandarin, or whatever, but I recognized his voice! He'd done  _King Lear_ so many times that he could recite the whole thing from memory, perfectly portraying all the characters at once, even all the daughters. Incredible gift of oratory. I offered to clean his teeth for free, once he'd sworn off heroin." Her face fell. "Only, he never did. Stopped seeing him every day at the park. Didn't know where he'd gone off to."

"You were acquainted with the Mandarin," Monica deadpans. There is not enough alcohol in the _universe_.

"Oh, the face of the Mandarin, sure! So once I saw that first TV broadcast, I went online. Deep online. Chatted some of our old CIA contacts up, too. We knew something wasn't adding up. How does a drug-addled stage actor turn into a terrorist? Plus, there were too many dissimilarities between him and the actual Ten Rings group. Trappings, ideology, methods of attack and all. So I started posting requests for information, offered bitcoin rewards."

Two more Hennessey Sprites arrive, each garnished with orange slices and mint sprigs. Monica all but throws a bundle of cash at the poor server, even though her tab's been open for an hour. "Nuh _uh_. Ever get any bites?" 

"One." Janice plows into her drink. "And I didn't know it at the time. We got a new patient at the dental office one day. Little redheaded lady. Couldn't place her accent. Or her real age."

Monica's heart skips a beat. "She'd figured out where you work?!"

"We take some Xrays, and she's chatting me up the whole time. Not saying much about herself. She was curious about me specifically. Asks what I do for fun, where I hang out online, next thing I know we're discussing conspiracy theories. She leaves and the file we set up for her auto-deletes. But she'd left a card with a number in my scrubs pocket."

"The Black Widow gave you her phone number."  Monica watches her own life flash before her eyes. Maybe if she'd gone through with the Dora Milaje training, the thought wouldn't petrify her so. Instead, she'd vied for outsider education. _And now I'm here._  "So, how're you not dead? Or am I talking to an impostor...?" 

"Pfft. Nah, we met up for coffee, and she comes clean. She'd seen my posts while running SHIELD ops in Laos. Wasn't sure whether I was just a curious civilian, or an AIM sleeper agent trying to throw SHIELD and the CIA off the scent. _Then_ all the shit goes down in Jersey, with Iron Man and the Iron Patriot rescuing the President from what's-his-name that ran the AIM think-tank. And for the rest of the year Nat would pop in every so often to grab coffee."

"And she introduced you to superfling."

"She was very subtle about it," Janice laughs. "They'd just finished a joint op in the Everglades and had time to hang out for a bit. Steve was such a  _sweetheart_ , Mo'. His mama raised him right, I'll tell you what. Pulled out the damn chair for me. So while Nat went to the ladies' room, I asked him if he'd been to Disney World yet." Janice sighs over the lip of her cocktail. "His face lights up like nothing else."

"Please don't say you kissed him while watching fireworks over Magic Kingdom."

"Then I won't say it." Janice winks. "And...that was his first kiss since 1945."

_"Girl."_

"Girl." They clink glasses. "Only, we kinda lost touch once SHIELD fell. Nobody to give them time off anymore, y'know?" Janice takes a pensive sip. "Last time we met, he mentioned he was worried some of his big-hitter enemies would find out about the people close to him."

"Shit. I'm so sorry, Jan, I didn't mean to—"

"No, no, it's cool! Wasn't altogether surprised, honest." She grins. "And now he's in trouble with both the U.N. and the Wakandan Embassy for intervening in y'all's extradition."

 _Ugh_. "It's already hit the net, then."

"Massive fight online, whether the Avengers should maintain their self-determination or fall in line with the U.N.'s Sokovia Accords. Solid arguments on both sides." 

"Yeah?" Monica takes another sip. "Did you pick a side?"

"I hate to think of people being deployed as weapons." Janice frowns. "Like, I get where they're coming from. The Avengers are powerful. They've done some damage. But they have a great track record of doing what armies and special ops teams couldn't get done." She suddenly splits into a grin. "Plus, _they_ weren't the ones who wanted to nuke Manhattan."

Monica laughs so hard that she begins to tear up. "True, true. Eh, I'm not sure which side I'd pick, to be honest. This set of Avengers isn't completely immortal. Who's to say everyone that gets added to the team in the future will have the same perfect moral fiber? Strategic internal oversight is what's kept Wakanda so stable over the centuries. But I can't imagine electing one Avenger to curb or enforce the actions of another."

"I could." Janice keeps grinning. "For this group, at least. And he's already their leader."

"What, you think him and the Falcon breaking rank to mess up a perfectly good extraction was a wise call?"

"You bet I do. You said it yourself barely an hour ago—if the polizei had killed Barnes? Then the Black Panther is obligated to roast each 'n every one of their asses alive. Captain America saved the Wakandan Embassy a _ton_ of paperwork, Mo!"

Monica bursts into laughter again. Janice has a point. "Fuck, Jan. You know what, fine. Your ninety-five-year-old fling is a hell of a better leader for the Avengers than anybody else I can think of."  _Unless T'Challa up and loses his mind in the near future..._ Monica perishes the thought.  _Nah. Never_. He has as much of a place within the Avengers as she does inside Stark fucking Industries.  _We're better off working independently._

Aren't they?

"When you put it that way..." Janice chugs her drink and pounds the empty glass back onto the table. "If more ninety-five-year-olds had faces and builds like that, I'd quit being a dental hygienist. Go work in the old-folks home. Hell, that kid even had perfect teeth." Her face lights up. "Think the Avengers already have a preferred dental care provider?"

"Please." Monica starts on her fourth drink. "But... now you got me thinking. What if they need more IT support? The waiting list can't be _that_ long."

Janice wiggles her perfectly trimmed eyebrows. "You really wanna fight all the Stark Industries incumbents? Just let me know ahead of time so I can Vine that shit."

"It's—there's just no way they'd let Stark have one hundred percent control over all their tech," Monica tries to assure herself aloud. "He goes down? Then so do the rest of them. Especially since he and the CEO apparently split up."

"Net says Potts wasn't on board with the whole  _Ultron_  mess. That's why I don't trust the guy. I don't care if he built the damn empire from the ground up—I'd never let a man code a goddamn experimental A.I. within  _my_ network. Nuh-uh. She's lucky the whole Stark intranet didn't get tanked."

"That A.I. was a stupid one," Monica murmurs. "Steeps in half of Reddit for thirteen seconds then thinks its best move is to upload runtimes into a team of hard platforms?! Should've stayed in the net if it really wanted to obliterate us all." She sighs. "Guess I'm just still pissed about Sokovia."

"Who wouldn't be?" Janice signals for another round. "Everybody says the Avengers handled it the best way they could, yeah, but the real best way to handle it would've been to  _not build the fuckin' A.I. to begin with._  In my humble opinion."

"True, but hindsight's always twenty-twenty or what have you. I just hate to think of what's going on right now that we could be preemptively stopping."

"Was that your mindset at eight this the morning? Because when you texted me, your phone was pinned to a coffee shop's WiFi—"

"Ebrik has way more security cameras than it needs," Monica laughs. "I can get out of there long before anybody makes the entrance."

"Huh. You think someone's after you?"

"Can never be too careful. S'why I don't hole up in the labs—makes it that much tougher to escape." At age forty, Monica is no _enhanced person_. She jumps through a second-story window? Broken heelbones and kneecaps in the best case scenario. "But in a way, this morning was still a success. We did nab the guy, after all, and once they complete a psych eval, he's all ours." 

To her surprise, Janice doesn't immediately whoop in delight. Instead she purses her lips, tucks a strand of curly hair behind one ear, blinks twice.  _Huh_. "The one they claimed was James Barnes, right?"

"Yeah. We got an incredible shot of the guy's face once he'd hopped in and out of that truck. He'd driven it there, too. Parked it right in front of the U.N. Audience Chamber. No mistaking it." _Not unless somebody crawled into his skin_ , she laughs inwardly.

"Hmm." Janice kneads her forehead. "Hearing Steve talk about Barnes... it was like that guy was his whole world. I didn't believe it was really him when the leak hit, didn't believe it when the headlines dropped, and now..."

"You don't believe the U.N. blast was him?" _You don't believe in me,_ Janice would translate easily enough.

"I just think it's wild. Same way I felt when I heard Trevor's voice on those Mandarin broadcasts—something's not adding up. We're missing pieces."

"What, you think Barnes is just a face?" Monica suddenly feels more sober now than she's ever felt in her forty years of life. "Von Strucker's been held in solitary confinement, all the HYDRA ground troops are in separate containment, and all the ex-KGB handlers we've found from the _asset's_ project files are long dead. He's killed off every HYDRA agent, officer and handler we've pinpointed from the leak." 

"But all it would take is just one more person, wouldn't it?" Janice shrugs. "Until the very last remaining HYDRA agent is confirmed dead, the movement's still technically active. Right?"

"What, you think someone could still have a way to control him?" Monica winces, but her mind is already in motion. "That...that would..."

"Just an idea. Can't be too careful." Janice's face brightens back into a smile. "Still, if the U.N. has him contained, and all those Avengers are on site, then what's there to worry about? He's as good as yours."

"Ha. True. Besides, it's my day off. I can always stress myself out later when I'm back at my desk." Monica sighs happily, leans back in her seat and orders another round. "Hey, you're gonna love my current side project, by the way. We can head to the labs after this, if you want."

Janice punches the air as though in victory. _"Hell,_ yes. Haven't seen your stuff since January. Still working on disease containment? Social engineering?"

"Those, too. But the newest development is my favorite. Just one more reason creating that _Ultron_ thing was a shitty decision on Tony Stark's part." She licks her lips. "Before the week's out, we're gonna have front-row seats to the Iron Man HUD."

 _"Girl_." Janice's eyes sparkle. "We gotta stop somewhere and grab popcorn first."

"You got it. It's a date." _Best day off ever._  

Janice is totally right, Monica decides. No point in agonizing over something decidedly outside her control, at least for the time being. With all those Avengers on site, plus the Black Panther himself? Everything would be  _fine_.

* * *

**NEW ORLEANS**

"Nicholas."

"Joseph."

"...Remember our talk from last month?"

"Refresh my memory." 

"The, oh,  _effects of international incident sensationalist media over-representation on your heart health—"_ Tetraditoxin B, after all, has profoundly long-lasting side effects on the cardiovascular system. It's the reason why he can't bring himself to leave Nick and go live his own life elsewhere. Or so he tells himself.

"I might just recall that one."

"Then, as you know, there's no one stopping you from turning the TV off. Not me, not your foul-mouthed friend with the katana, not—"

"Except for myself. It's my call. See, I remember that talk perfectly."

"So you've decided it's in your best interest to tap into live security feeds of the GSG9 base."

Nick turns to face him, tapping the LCD screen behind him with one scarred fingertip. "Are you not seeing this?!"

Despite his better judgment, Joe squints toward the screen. Blurs sharpen into images, into human figures. Into fights. He heaves a sigh and adjusts his gold-rimmed glasses. "You know...even if you were there, they might not be any better off—"

"Don't. Not now."

"Alright, Nick. But I'm upping your Lipitor. Again."

"Fair." The leather office chair swivels back around.

On his way back into the front of their narrow house, Joe sends a text message.  _At least you have the excuse of slowed aging._

 _Don't waste your energy fighting him_ is the response.  _We'll both die before retiring._

Well, Joe thinks, that's technically already happened to one of them. He'd made sure of it.  _Any luck finding the base yet?_

_I found it alright. Burned to the ground long before I showed up._

Swell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u Buzzfeed _Captain America: Civil War_ Answer Time for [this factoid](http://lightninglaveau.tumblr.com/post/140821548199/for-chris-andor-the-russo-bros-who-was-caps)!!  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for very brief mention of gore in Barnes’ memories here. It’s early enough that hitting your Page Down key twice should skip it.  
> Ayo is of course played by the magnificent Florence Kasumba [update: WHO HAS BEEN CONFIRMED FOR THE EXACT ROLE IN BLACK PANTHER BY MARVEL!!! QUIT READING MY FICS FEIGE!!!!] Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong'o have been confirmed for Okoye and Nakia, and my personal fancast for Aneka is Samira Wiley :D

 

* * *

**BERLIN**

_Longing_.

The word used to mean something poetic to him, something lovely. It evoked emotions of which he’d deemed himself thoroughly undeserving.

After all, he’d been a smarmy Episcopalian Midwesterner whose daddy had luckily made a killing in the stock market and could afford to move the whole family to Brooklyn, where the schools were better. Even after the crash, he’d remained one of the guys, a regular Buck with a respectable clerk job, not some prissy blood-coughing bohemian upon whom shit like _longing_ could be thrust.

But ten words later, _longing_ cannot be more apt.

He longs for the scattered pieces of those cruel winter nights spent at a darkened bedside, where he’d sworn each time that Steve wasn’t gonna make it. When he’d felt the stinging chill of grief settling prematurely in his bones with every bead of sweat trickling from his little friend’s forehead as he’d panted.

He longs for the smarting-hot afternoons stretching into hell-scorched eternity as _Panzerfaust_ rockets render his squadmates into twitching chunks of meat, when he could swear he’d never live to see Steve or Becca or his poor mother again, not with the hulking shadows of _Königstiger_ tanks looming ahead like thunderclouds.

He longs for the sour mornings that had immediately followed his rebirth, bolting awake in horror to find he’d allowed himself to sleep, feeling paranoia and adrenaline flooding his freshly-unscabbed nerves and rattling his vision. Swearing each time that, in those brief moments of unconsciousness, he’d vividly hallucinated—fuzzy sights and sounds of a little guy named _St—_

He longs for all of these things, these times and places; for all the nascent aches they inflict upon him, even combined, are preferable still to the agony that is right here and right now.

" _Soldat."_

His body complies. His limbs deaden and move against his will. His manacles crumple beneath the pressing of his fingertips. The glass around his flesh-and-bone self cracks to dust.

“Mission report,” his new handler orders. “December sixteen, nineteen-ninety-one.”

He answers questions, provides coordinates, mentally retraces his path from the base's rooftop helipad to where he now stands. Begins counting down to when the GSG9 or the base's security team will likely arrive on the scene, if not one or more of the _Avengers_ themselves.

Perhaps one of them will render him nonfunctional. Perhaps he’s been on the run too long, has lost some of his edge, has grown sloppy. Perhaps he’s just vulnerable enough now, without asset-standard body armor and his usual array of weapons. Trapped inside his head, he can only hope and dream and stave off lung-crushing despair with such exquisite fantasies.

Maybe the GSG9 and Avengers combined, working together this time, are enough to take him down. Maybe he’ll die before he can kill anyone else.

This would be _fantastic._

He obeys, backs into a shadowed corner, and watches as Helmut Zemo slowly lowers himself to the floor. He waits.

There’s a sort of sick gratefulness coursing through his veins even now. He’s grateful that he’s found out the hard way only here and now that he is still weaponized. That he’s no less susceptible to the trigger words than he’s ever been.

What if someone had found him in Bucharest, had unleashed him upon the innocent populace there? Or when he’d hiked through the quaint villages of Estonia? When he’d hopped a fishing boat from the Faroe Islands to Bergen? He could have been ordered to murder each and every jolly old man on that vessel after they’d discovered him, after they’d asked for his story and offered him an olive branch of rich, dark beer with thick foam. All those days, all those people, and they’d been spared from his brutality by sheer luck.

He knows now that he hadn’t been reborn, not one bit.

 _It’s still in me. HYDRA endures_. _Cut off one head—_

That line is what rings in both sets of his ears as he lunges for the first responder—an Avenger. The Falcon. _Wilson_.

Oh, no, _no—_

He’s on the helicarrier again, static blistering his eardrums until he’s pretty sure they each bleed, invisible trickles of blood like twin tattoos running down his jaw and neck. His body is doing as it’s told, and he’s weeping again inside of himself. He doesn’t want to hurt this man. He recognizes him from the bridge, hears the tales from his handlers about how some unarmored civvy somehow managed to disarm them all with only a pocket knife and his bare knuckles.

Pierce hadn’t anticipated Sam Wilson. That much is clear. A faint spark of shock registers in those murky green eyes once the mission report is concluded. Rumlow is asked to shoot one of the handlers in the kneecaps to set an example. Rumlow complies, no trigger words needed.

 _Rumlow._ To this day, he’s not sure whether he envies that man or not.

Back on the helicarrier, he strings up one stunning metallic wing and cuts it cleanly from the rest of the Falcon’s jetpack. He kicks the man over the edge, into the blue-gray ethyr. His eyes watch the man fall. He confirms him sufficiently neutralized and instead turns his tactical attention to the remaining soldier.

Buried within himself, he prays that the Falcon had opened his parachute quickly enough. He doesn’t want the man’s legs broken. He doesn’t want any of this.

He doesn’t want _any_ of this.

He’s back in Berlin. Red sirens split the shadows from all angles, corners barely visible in the emergency lockdown lighting otherwise.

Steve’s here now. 

If anyone _could_ kill him, it’d be Steve, but he already knows Steve _won’t_. And he doesn’t wish that experience upon his hapless friend.

Instead he gives into his body’s ascribed tasks. He focuses on determining his environmental advantages, spots the elevator doors, goes to work. Drives one foot toward the Captain’s shin, but his foot’s blocked with one hand, so he spins to knock the hand away, attempts another uppercut in vain, punches in all the right directions to steer Steve where his body needs Steve pushed.

From the corner of his eye, Wilson goes after Zemo. _Get out of here_ , he yells to the inside of his skull. _Find him_ , he orders at this top of his own muted voice.  _Stop him!_

Within seconds he’s knocked Captain America into the metal twin doors and down the elevator shaft. He watches him fall until he can deem him sufficiently neutralized.

Time to head up.

Maybe, he thinks as he climbs, Iron Man will take him down. That would just be _sublime_.

The name _Howard Stark_ rolls through his head—camera flashes, the cheering of a young audience, the taste of boiled peanuts in his mouth, the smell of petrol and fresh leather as a glowing car lifts wholly off the ground, inch by inch, glowing all the while. A prodigy of a young man kisses a showgirl onstage.

Less jagged are the wartime memories—that same handsome man sticking a fortified syringe into Steve’s arm and drawing out some of that precious, precious blood for research in the future. He’s quick-talking, dashing, just self-deprecating enough that he thinks he might have wanted to be just like him in his past life.

Stark does conduct research in the future. Nearly fifty years into the future, give or take. The Berlin Wall has fallen, but HYDRA has not. He complies. Stark dies. He spares no witnesses, not even the state park's meager CCTV camera. Local authorities won't glean anything from the garbled footage, and in time it will slip into a specific SHIELD database for cleanup and storage.

He’s up onto the ground floor, now. Spacious, sunlit foyers and antechambers give way to concrete security checkpoints with wall-mounted light panels. He scans the scene, takes down two guards, finds a pistol.

There’s the younger Stark. His inside-self sighs in relief as his bullet ricochets against the titanium alloy casing of a flash-forming gauntlet. But Stark is no physical specimen, and crumples like tin foil soon enough.

His higher processes are jarred for a searing half-second as an uncanny face rapidly approaches. _Carter_ , his ears tell him. Is it a blue notebook memory? Or a green notebook one? He’s sure he’ll never get those books back. He’s already mourned their agonizing loss.

But there’s no way. He tells himself there’s no way, it’s a trick of the light, a sick dream. Like the heroine from _Inglourious Basterds_ in that red, red dress, she glares at him with purpose, violently direct. But the dress belongs on someone else, belongs to a dark-haired Brit notoriously unafraid of oncoming vehicles. _Green notebook memory_ , he’s pretty sure.

This blonde woman lands a solid kick on him, but for all her agility she’s only human. He strains at his many leashes as the leashes themselves focus on how to take her down. _Get away_ , could he only scream, could he only beg. _You can’t stop m—_

The next kick to his face is much more potent, sends him staggering backward. He knows that brand of motion better than anyone else the world over. He’s given birth to it himself. _A Black Widow_.

Not just a Black Widow. _The_ Black Widow. His.

It’s 1994. The air is solidly cold, the way only Siberian air can weigh so heavily upon even the best-protected of skin. He stands at attention, awaiting orders. He and two other _assets_ oversee a cluster of schoolgirls at work.

The elderly Matriarch, one Dorothy Underwood, points to the redhead. “Romanova. Here. Now.”

Over the course of the following week the redhead learns to grapple from him. He watches her kill a prisoner five times her age using naught but her own limbs, gives her his notes, tells her how she can improve.

 _“You took three seconds longer than necessary_.”

_“He was my enemy. I wanted to draw out his suffering.”_

_“Lying will get you nowhere, Natalia.”_

_“What makes you think I’m lying,_ robotnik?”

2009\. The air is thick with sand, heat, and the heady combination of blood and engine-fire smoke. A redhead in Kevlar effectively blocks his shot, or so she thinks. What she doesn’t know is that his bullets, all Soviet slugs lacking any rifling, are coated in Teflon. He watches the engineer’s eyes cloud, watches the Widow’s eyes sharpen in pain. She sees him, even through her own blood. If she survives this, she’ll remember him. But she is not his target. Not today.

2014\. His task is a simple one, even given the sheer number of civilians present. They are nothing to him. His targets are both Level 6; one, he’s neutralized already, having made use of an oncoming Penske truck. The other has electrocuted him, has pissed his outer body _off_. For an alarming number of seconds, his body seethes, panics, fires ill-checked shots in the _Widow’s_ general direction. HYDRA has never stressed upon trigger discipline, no, but he’s wasting good ammunition. And he knows it. He just doesn't care.

 _“I have her_ ,” he growls to his handlers. His inside-self weeps for the impending scene. His shot is clean. He watches her go down, watches the STRIKE team capture the rest.

And yet, against all odds, they’re now both here in Berlin. Together again.

In seconds, she’s trapped him in a back-mounted grapple, then swings around to cinch his throat. Her form is perfect, her movements efficient and smooth. Were he a normal man, his neck would have long ago snapped.

But he’s anything but normal. He slowly steps forward as she pounds the back of his head with her fists. _Looking to hard-reset me_. He thinks he loves her.

His body lurches down to slam her backwards into a conference table. Now her shins have clamped his neck, cutting off the flow of blood to his head. He’s swimming. Her lips are awfully red.

“You could at least _recognize_ me,” she hisses, her sharp eyes looking directly through his body’s and into his own. She sees him, trapped in there, is banging on his cell doors, is picking the locks, but she’s faltering, losing strength as his metal arm clamps tighter around her neck. He’s had to kill a _Widow_   before. He knows exactly how to do this. Three more seconds and—

He’ll come to understand later that she’d been holding him in place, had let his body slip into a false sense of security. He’s utterly distracted by her, to the point that the next kick to his shoulder comes as though from out of nowhere.

The man he now knows to be His Highness Prince T’Challa of Wakanda and its incumbent king, the Black Panther himself, punches him in the face, and he _loves_ it.

 _Take me out_ , he begs. _I know you can. You’ve seen me. You know me._ Perhaps even better than those carrying rose-tinted memories of his past life can claim to do.

T’Challa isn’t in the vibranium suit this time, instead clad in another skintight shirt, slacks and boots. There’s a peculiar hum emanating from the single fang dangling from his necklace, a wavelength so low that he likely only feels it through his arm. But it's there. _Wakandan tech. Keybead_. The thing is likely recording his movements and scanning his cellular makeup even as they fight. As he blocks and parries ten hits for everyone one he can get in. _Here_ is that hurricane of strikes he's so missed.

He’s back in that boxing gym, pitted alone against this newcomer. No weapons, save for their fists. T’Challa’s attacks come in rapid succession, from every angle at once, but he will not break easily. He is thick, and steady, and can endure a great deal. A hurricane cannot flatten a mountain.

Then T’Challa catches his arm, the metal one.

The prosthetic is a testament to its designers’ genius in that he can feel those warm stretches of T'Challa's hand holding it in place. The countless microsensors in its casing relay to him T’Challa’s individual strands of muscle and tendon, stray beads of sweat collecting in the crevices of his knuckles, and that same curious indentation betraying a lack of a large ring as he'd felt on the other the day before.

What’s more is that T’Challa, too, is _strong_. They wrestle, these hands against one another, a fight for dominance nearly as figurative as it is literal. T’Challa’s free hand, the right one, stretches out before his face, and he finally sees a thick ring on the fourth finger. Not the middle one, as he’d detected in the gym.

Who moves the same ring from one hand to the next? Has he deemed the thing ill-fitting? Is it not his? Not meant for him? ...Not meant for him _yet?_

He— _Bucky_ , he’d told Zemo, he’s Bucky. Luke is T’Challa, and he, James, is also Bucky. Bucky continues to pound away at the tungsten leashes around his soul and voice. He wants to speak to T’Challa. He has so very many questions, and just as many admissions to make.

_The bombing—T’Challa—your highness—Majesty—I’m not—I didn’t—the story’s wrong, everything’s wrong—this isn’t me—wasn’t—_

He realizes with a jolt that he no longer wants to die. Not yet.

As T’Challa expertly spins him in place, lifting the metal arm clear over both their heads, he cannot help but feel as though they’re dancing again. Bucky doesn’t want to die. He wants to keep dancing, like this. He wants to dance, wants to fight, wants to argue, wants to discuss so very many things with this graceful, disciplined fighter and king. He wants to hear that rich, soft voice again, more than anything else in the world.

He wants to apologize. Even if he himself hadn’t killed T’Challa’s poor father, there’s an empathy-apology sitting in his stomach. He wants to give his condolences. Wants to help, any way he can.

 _I know who did it_ , he screams toward white static walls of his own skull. _I know where he’s headed. We can go to him. Bring him to justice. You deserve that much._ He deserves this and so much more.

 _I want to give you the world._ He wants to live to see what T’Challa would do with it.

Bucky can’t set things right. But he can at least clean up his damage. He can at least try.

His body, however, has other plans. This whole time, it’s been steadily shifting its weight to its legs, and now has enough strength reserved to flip the two of them over. They roll down the stairs, two bodies knotted together, twisting and bruised and hot.

At the landing, he’s slightly disoriented. It’s a familiar feeling—his head buzzes the way it did when a loose support beam had crashed atop him inside of that final helicarrier, pinning him in place. The buzzing had continued as he’d hit Steve, as Steve had spoken words to him.

Presently, Bucky tackles the inside of his skull as the buzzing continues. It makes his whole universe vibrate. He can hear the many metal leashes clattering together, straining to hold him down.

If he can bust through—if he can break free from himself—

T’Challa does not wait on him. He instead plunges the heel of his hand into Bucky’s nose, threatening to break it. Unfortunately this does break his body’s buzzing trance; Bucky can only watch helplessly as its limbs resume their customary strikes. 

 _The damn trigger words_. He can’t do anything until that’s remedied. There is no hope of justice, nor vengeance, nor even a meager shred of relief, not from his end. Not until this _thing_ is flushed from him like the venom it is.

This can’t go on. Even if they recapture him, even if he broke out, escape would no longer mean freedom. So long as the words exist in his head, so long as his head is intact, he’s only a weapon. A blunt object, to be swung into another person’s skull. A bloodstained tool.

T’Challa kicks him over the railing and he falls to the floor below. Just as he regains his bearings and begins to bolt toward the helipad stairwell, T’Challa jumps over the railing.

Even his leash-led body starts in shock, or awe, or both. T’Challa soars to him as though borne on invisible wings, as angelic now as his Panther-guise had seemed demonic the day before.

T’Challa slowly rises from his crouch, scrutinizing Barnes just as he had appraised Captain America in the tunnel. There’s a cold gleam in his eyes, his full lips contorting as he calculates. _He sees me._

The next seconds are a collective blur—another dance, another bout, the gleaming of his opponent’s forehead and upper lip betraying his growing fatigue. Bucky’s fist finds an opening. T’Challa hits the floor with a breathless snarl.

Bucky sobs, his knees giving out, and he falls limply into the metallic hold of his many leashes.

His body runs. At least, it confirms, there’s an unblocked path to the helipad now, to the chopper sitting atop its paved surface. _To Siberia._

His body starts the engine and straps itself in. Child's play. Mission accomplished, it thinks.

 _I_ _’ve failed_ , Bucky howls. _Again._

And of course it is by a twist of fate alone that he instead plummets into a river. Again.

As he blacks out, he wonders: will this cycle of false rebirths never cease?

* * *

“They cannot have gotten far,” the prince, now her king and charge, pleads. His palms face upward, and his face is a mess of tears and sweat. She can see his knees threatening to give out. “We can track them down—we can find—”

“Absolutely not.” Ayo knows her place. It is right here, with her spike-heeled feet planted firmly between T’Challa and the prayer chamber’s lone doorway.

Reasonable people the world over believe Wakanda’s king to be its highest authority. Second to none. Well, they are wrong, and need not know the better, so far as she is concerned.

And so both she and Aneka have played the recent chain of events by ear. They had approved the prince’s—his title in her head is a habit that will take far longer than a day to break—the _king’s_ departure to Bucharest on provisional grounds: that Monica have eyes on him at all times, with hourly checks-in from S’Yan, while they had arranged the transport of T’Chaka’s remains back in Vienna.

But T’Chaka has been handled, his lacerated corpse flown home to Wakanda for autopsy and funeral preparation. There is no reason in all of creation to let T’Challa out of her sight now. Aneka nods in agreement, folding her arms.

“You are not thinking logically, Majesty,” Ayo continues. “I wish you could see your own eyes. They are dim with rage. Justifiably, yes, but—”

“He is a monster,” T’Challa rasps, his fists clenching. “And these Avengers—those who have not run off with him!—could not stop him from escaping. I must do this. Alone.”

“You speak with all the hubris of outsider middle-management,” Aneka chides, casting an eye-roll to Ayo. “Like an overgrown brat, thinking himself entitled to all he sees, confusing confidence for competence."

Ayo nods. "You know better than this, Majesty. Lynne has found the killer once before; she can easily find him again. You know this to be true. But first you _must_ contain yourself.”

She momentarily thanks Bast that Monica Lynne is not physically present. Her own frequent forays into similar fits of rage, Ayo suspects, are symptomatic of too much time spent amongst outsiders. A necessary tradeoff, of course; both her intel and analytic wisdom have led to the neat staving off of more than one threat to their kingdom’s security. But were she here, right now, T’Challa would surely be far more difficult to sway.

That said, T’Challa’s eventual compliance is a foregone conclusion. Suited up, he _might_ be able to take on Ayo by herself, and even Aneka by herself immediately after. But the two of them, together, versus his fatigued muscles and unarmored flesh? Ha.

In time S’Yan and B’Tumba return, the latter carrying several takeout boxes of warm food. Ayo reluctantly chews and swallows her pieces of fried fish. _These Europeans, they use far too much salt._ Likely to disguise the age of the fish. Still, it has been a day, and none of them need starve.

Aneka nudges her shoulder against Ayo’s. _The killer has unhinged him_ , she communicates via keyhoop. The unspoken words travel wirelessly between their yellow-gold sets of earrings in Aneka’s characteristically soothing tones.

 _Agreed_ , Ayo replies. _He will rue the day he chose to insult us so._ She will make sure of it.

Once their small army of aides confirms the exit secured, Ayo squeezes T’Challa’s shoulder. “Lynne forwarded me her gathered footage of your fight,” she says. “You did well. Your blessed father would be proud.”

T’Challa cracks a smile, taken aback. His eyes mist appropriately, no longer predatorily flat. Aneka picks up on the pun and cackles under her breath; as the adage goes, praise from a Dora Milaje comes once per lifetime.

Even more rarely does the burden of kingship fall upon the shoulders of the Black Panther. Ayo herself cannot accurately recall when last the phenomenon occurred. As such, she is unsurprised at T’Challa’s insistence on running off every hour on the hour. He has trained his whole life to become both Panther and king in turn, and yet by the time he _should_ have rightfully ascended to the throne, the next Panther in line would already have assumed that mantle. As it is, his hunting experience and instincts far exceed his political acumen, which is in itself not shabby at all.

Still, it’s an enigma Ayo herself is scarcely prepared to handle. Her own long-honed skills encapsulate physical defense, psychological reading, taking in and analyzing her surroundings in a single glance, as her reflexes have been heightened beyond human physiotypical means. She speaks twelve languages fluently and understands nineteen more. And she, like her sisters, possesses an unearthly level of strength gifted from Bast herself.

 _Those Accords they’ve so rapidly drafted_ , Aneka had mentioned to her only the day before, _do apply to us, should we so reveal our true might._

And so they had refrained from engaging the _asset_ head-on. Instead they had evacuated the remaining Wakandan aides and courtiers, secured their end of the complex, and sent real-time reports to Lynne.

“Please _tell me the Black Panther suit’s VPN is malfunctioning,_ ” she had groaned, _“and that’s the only reason why I can’t connect to him right now.”_

 _“It took slight wear in their Bucharest skirmish,”_ Aneka had growled. _“N’Baza has been running a diagnostic in a free office here. But it’s on the other side of the damned complex._ ” Not nearly enough time for T’Challa to have suited up before engaging the killer; he’d had to choose. He’d chosen Barnes.

 _“Shit. You think he can take on the_ asset _by himself?!”_

_“Not unsuited, but other Avengers are onsite. He’s wearing his keybead, Lynne. We'll know if his vitals change drastically.”_

_“Understood. And be sure to take extra caution, you two. Just because T’Challa is immune to the Accords doesn’t mean—”_

_“We’ve gathered,”_ Aneka had spat.

Now, hours later, they are finally ready to depart. Ayo can guess their next plan of action; once they return to Wakanda, once T’Chaka’s ashes are planted beneath his life-tree sapling, once they give their thanks to Bast and Sekhmet, then they can launch their counterattack. There is no place the killer can think to hide. And they now have three different men on the run, rather than one. Their vengeance is imminent, if not immediate—

 _Be ready_ , Aneka suddenly warns her. At the other end of the tunnel is a copper-haired woman. An infamous one. She stands before T’Challa’s limousine, hands clasped before her in a show of acquiescence. Ayo knows it is nothing more than that: a show.

How many _Widows_ , she strains to recall, have attempted to infiltrate Wakanda, even in her few short decades of service alone?

How many _Widows_ has she herself slaughtered? She cannot count the number on her two hands.

How many more _Widows_ will think to test her so? That number does not matter. _Let them try._

“Majesty, slow up. Aneka, watch his six. B’Tumba, with me.” She takes the lead.

Natasha Romanoff is by far the palest _Widow_  Ayo has ever seen, and the smallest. Yet there is no question that the Red Room’s miasma hangs about her colorless aura; there is the telltale webbing of electrified steel beneath her cool eyes and slight smile. She knows fully well that predators can come in all shapes and sizes.

But Ayo sits at the top of this particular food chain. “Move,” she orders, “or you will be moved.”

T’Challa continues toward the car without breaking his stride. Good; any faltering in their steps would send the entirely wrong message. Only B’Tumba looks ruffled, but as that is seemingly his default state, Ayo cannot bring herself to care overmuch.

Romanoff only gives her the same steady smile, a mechanical sort of curl that conveys neither benevolence nor amusement. She’s seen that smile before, on countless faces. She’s wiped it off of each one, every time.

“As entertaining as that would be…” T’Challa pauses behind the open door, not yet having ducked into the vehicle, and nods his head to Ayo. _Watch her closely_ , he relays via their keybeads' group frequency.

Romanoff turns to face him. “You really think you can find him?”

 _Do not get him started,_ Ayo wants to carve into those pasty cheeks with one stiletto. She knows a proposal when she sees one.

T’Challa, for his part, looks utterly nonplussed. “My resources are considerable,” he reminds Romanoff. _Let us at least see what she is willing to offer_ , his voice hums in Ayo’s keyloop.

Romanoff bats her eyelashes in a manner Ayo can only assume is meant to look alluring. _Get on with it._ “Yeah,” she intones lowly, “it took the world seventy years to find Barnes. So you can probably do that in about half the time.”

Ayo is well aware that no _Widow_ is this stupid.

 _I am unfamiliar with the denizens of the Red Room,_ S’Yan admits inline. _Am I to believe this is an attempt at flattery?_

 _Play along_ , Aneka suggests to T’Challa. _We can always analyze her negotiation tone and methods later._

T’Challa gives a slow nod. “You know where they are,” he interprets.

Romanoff smiles again. “I know someone who does.”

There it is, that manic bolt of cold lightning splitting into her charge’s otherwise warm black eyes. This banshee has set afire the ground beneath his feet, a transgression for which Ayo will never forgive her. “And I'm to take you at your word?”

Romanoff's smile remains pasted in place. "You're asking if you can trust me?"

 _It could be a trap, Majesty. The world knows that Wakanda's line of succession is now vulnerable. We need more from her if we’re gonna agree to this!_ By the time Ayo realizes that Monica Lynne is now patched in, it is too late to intervene. She makes a mental note to discipline the living daylights out of B’Tumba at the first opportunity.

“I ask whether you have a better plan than storming whatever hole they’ve found to hide in.”

“We’ve set a trap for them,” she replies. “The only way out of the country is by air. Roads are locked down, borders sealed tight, and everyone knows what the three of them look like. Their only option is Leipzig, where our Quinjet’s currently parked.”

 _Their shoddy excuse of a VTOL,_ Lynne laughs inline. _You know what? I say go for it, if you want. This’ll probably be pretty funny—_

 _There is absolutely nothing humorous about this_ , Aneka scolds her. _It’s too risky, Majesty. She’ll betray you the first chance she gets._

Lynne titters. _But if he doesn’t go? Then the Avengers will either entrap him only long enough to lose him_ again _, or kill him before we can have him extradited. Timing is of the essence, whether you all like it or not._

Ayo refuses to deign Lynne’s logic with voiced consensus. But it does ring true. _Is my judgment clouded as well?_ She wonders this for not the first time that afternoon alone.

“And the Accords have permitted the rest of you to engage the convicts?” T’Challa asks, his tone light and airy.

“Of course. Our goal is still the same, T’Challa. We’ve got to bring Barnes to justice. But this is a pure Avengers operation this time around.” She gives him a saccharine smile. “The GSG9 won't be present to threaten his life. We’re all highly schooled in nonlethal takedown, rest assured.”

 _You can rest assured in the_ veld _once she’s shot you in the back_ , Aneka all but spits.

Ayo is highly inclined to agree with her. But she is also morbidly fascinated with these Avengers. Particularly the one called Vision, child of Tony Stark and his Ultron, its tissues organic and its processes synthetic. _Lynne_ , she finally brings herself to ask,  _you're confident you can capture worthwhile footage of what will happen at this airport?_

 _More confident than if the Black Panther were not present,_ she replies. _Whatever we grab from his HUD will be extremely useful for the future. Plus, I almost have the Iron Man HUD infiltration suite ready for testing—_

“That settles it,” T’Challa replies. He steps out from behind the car door, snaps it neatly closed, and offers the Black Widow his hand. “How soon do we deploy?”

“In twelve hours’ time,” she answers as she shakes. “Stark’s making a pickup in New York City. We’ll hit as soon as they get back.”

 _You have made a pact with the devil_ , Aneka points out as they collectively stride back into the base. _Do not let her take further advantage of your emotional state, Majesty._

 _Is that not,_ T’Challa silently replies _, why I have all of you?_

It’s a good thing she so loves her king, Ayo thinks. Because, right now, she does not like him in the least.

_Bast help us all._

* * *

**NEW ORLEANS**

DARLENE, even her old eyes can plainly read on the paper sign. No mistake about it; this _heathen_ of a man holding it high is her son's contact.  _He's a little eccentric_ _,_ Sam had said. Well. But she does wonder, now, whether this is instead one of the traps he had mentioned.

On the other hand, he has indeed been running with quite a circus of friends lately.

_Steve’s onto something, Ma. They decide to come after me, they’ll want to find you ASAP as well. Could abduct you, use you as blackmail, or worse. You gotta get to safety. Here’s where. Trust me._

She squints as the escalator carries her forward. Does this man belong to a real circus? With that haircut, it's a maybe. She bristles at the sight of the sword handle over his shoulder. The thing looks vaguely Asian in style, not that she can guess further. For all she knows, this man is simply Wesley Snipes in a ninja costume.  _Mercy._

“Ma’am,” he says as she steps forward. “How was your flight?”

“Oh, Paul always said that if y’ain’t got something nice to say, honey, then you’d better not say anything at all.”

Her guide makes no reaction to the dead man's advice. “I can carry your bag, if you need. Lemme know if you’d like a wheelchair—”

Darlene is _this close_ to whacking her new friend in the face with her cane. “I am sixty-eight,” she all but hollers. “Not a hundred!”

“Got it.” To her surprise, he cracks a smile. Even though his teeth are terribly sharp, it's a welcoming one, and his eyes gleam in an admittedly lovely shade of amber. “The car’s this way. Sure you don’t want a water or anything? Iced tea?”

“This’s New Orleans, ain’t it?” Darlene casts another glance his way as they reach the car—a vintage Dodge Charger with slick black paint and a scooped hood. Paul would have approved, she thinks. “I want a daiquiri. High octane. _Now_.”

“And here Wilson said you was Baptist,” her companion grumbles as he loads her suitcase into the trunk.

Darlene folds one hand over the other once her seatbelt is properly fastened. “Son. Is today the Lord’s day? Tell me truly, now.”

“The—it's Tuesday, ma’am, but I’m really not the one to tell y—”

“No? It’s not the Lord’s day, you say? Then _get me a daiquiri_.”

“Well, alright, if you really mean it. But—”

Does she mean it. “Now just you listen here, son—”

“Blade.”

“...I beg your pardon?”

“The name is Blade.” He slips on a pair of sunglasses and starts up the radio. Old-school rap, she hazards. None of that early 2000s gangsta nonsense, at least. Needless to say, _she_ prefers Gospel stations.

“Blade.” She accepts this nonsense with her usual sophistication and grace. “Then listen up, _Blade_. My name is Darlene Wilson. Two of my three sons have fallen in military combat. I’ve lost my born-again Baptist preacher of a husband to a hot-headed truck driver. _I_ have survived the Cold War, _numerous_ police assaults in the 60s, two terrorist bombings, the housing crash, an alien invasion, the HYDRA uprising, and global threat by way of a robot army. Now, I'm told I need to hide from yet another bad guy I don’t even know. And yesterday I may have kissed my only living son goodbye for the last time.” She looks directly into those amber eyes even as her voice quivers with that last sentence. “God will forgive me for one _damn_ drink.”

“Ma’am.”

The nearest daiquiri shop—a drive-thru one, heaven help her—is only minutes away. High octane frozen daqs come in two flavors here. “The strawberry in’t as tasty as the peach,” Blade informs her. “Found that out the hard way.” He also orders one for himself, but it sits, lid unpunctured and straw firmly wrapped, in the cupholder between their seats for the remainder of their drive. Darlene can approve of that, at least.

Within seconds, they’re back on the road, heading deeper into the city. Once they turn from Broad Street onto Rue Esplanade, strip malls and low offices abruptly break into thick oak trees and candy-hued Creole cottages. _CLEAN UP FIDEAUX’S POOP_ , a hand-painted sign reads in front of an azalea bush in full bloom.

Blade. _Mercy._ Darlene sips away. Her new friend has an absolutely outrageous name, ridiculously-trimmed hair, the wildest full-length leather coat she’s ever seen _(in this eighty-degree heat!)_ , and an honest-to-goodness sword—but he also has excellent taste in frozen daiquiris.

Now if she would just hear back from her baby. Darlene has known from day one that she can’t stop Sam from adventuring off with the superhero circus, but it still breaks her heart each and every time he leaves for combat, knowing he may not return to her.

 _May He keep y’all in His loving embrace_ , she prays between sips. Her intuition tells her that they’re gonna need every scrap of help they can get.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to Tumblr user spacecomrades for the middle scene transcript!  
> Did y’all know that [Peggy’s CATFA red dress was inspired by Shosanna’s from Inglourious Basterds](http://clothesonfilm.com/captain-america-qa-with-costume-designer-anna-sheppard/21536/)? I can’t help but think that present-day Barnes would get at least some shred of belligerent joy from watching Hitler get shot in the face by Eli Roth…  
> Thanks to Trev for your sweet comment!!


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**LEIPZIG**

T’Challa wants desperately to believe that this curious tunnel enclosing his vision is merely a mirage.

But even he cannot deny that the sun beams down onto the Leipzig tarmac like an all-encompassing iron brand, flattening the few present souls under its burning press and leaving no stretch of his sight obscured. This is no desert. This is no trick of the light.

It’s a maddening level of clarity, heightened even further both by his own senses and the high quality of his HUD, allowing no shadows nor traps to hide. The Black Panther sees all, for better or worse.

But as more renegade Avengers appear, they all seem to fade away into the recesses of these tunnel walls, each into a perfectly-shaped niche. There’s something wrong with him, he thinks. Knows. After all, his suit is climate-controlled; there is no logical reason for the searing of his bones and blood, the heat waves emanating from every inch of his skin and baking him alive within this coating of metal. None whatsoever.

When and how exactly he had become so unhinged, thrown so far off balance, T’Challa cannot say. But he cannot afford his own malaise any attention, not right now.

Now, he must hunt.

T’Challa dashes toward the concourse wherein the killer’s location has been pinpointed. His peripheral vision blurs and ripples until only the very centers of his eyes seem to function—a blindness imposed on him by the urgency of this situation, he tells himself, and by his own righteous fury.

_“BARNES IS MINE!”_

The words escape his mouth at a volume even he is surprised it can reach, and there is no wind here to carry his cannon blast of a declaration away, not one meager breeze to soften its boom. But whether his allies pay him any mind is behind him. They’re all behind him, light years behind him. Everything in creation has melted away, save for his target.

Being wrong feels a great deal like being right, as it turns out. The Captain intervenes first, popping out from his slot in the tunnel wall and blocking T’Challa’s path.

T'Challa's claws are out. _Your friend never has been safe from me, Captain._ For his crime of only delaying the inevitable, Rogers will watch, helplessly, as the Black Panther takes Barnes' life.  _This will be your punishment for succumbing to your own bias. He is not the man you remember him to be, and it's high time you accept this._

But if he must instead shred Rogers with his own hands, then so be it. The Captain is a solid fighter, but the Panther is anointed by Bast herself, and something altogether different from blood now floods his veins. It's fuel, not of the clean-burning variety, churning and sizzling until tongues of flame burst forth within him. His hits are harder and faster and the Captain is almost entirely on the defensive. Vibranium should not easily mar vibranium, T'Challa knows, but the shield’s red and blue paint chips away at his touch, and his claws leave thick, jagged scratch marks behind. 

“That shield of his is ancient,” Monica chuckles in his ear. “The vibranium in it would’ve been refined with outsider state-of-the-art tech in the forties. Can’t stand up to yours.”

But Rogers, Barnes and Wilson have not arrived to the scene alone; against all odds, they have been joined by a figure in an elaborate suit and helmet who instantly disappears, a young Rromani woman whose deep brown eyes sizzle with red energy, and a middle-aged man sporting hearing aids and a quiver.

“We haven’t met yet,” the archer hollers, his consonants slurring ever so slightly. “I’m Clint!”

Two arrows— _arrows_!—speed T’Challa’s way. But he is of course ready for them.

“Explosive-tipped,” Monica reminds him. “Among a bunch of other tricks. I have one satellite covering him alone. He’s wily, I’ll give him that.”

T’Challa effortlessly catches the delicate projectiles and directs their shrapnel over his shoulders. “I don’t care.”

He doesn’t care about _any_ of these people, save for one.

Trucks and planes blossom into fireballs. The airport has long been evacuated, and Stark had made some mention of covering any equipment damage and cleanup costs. Even T’Challa senses that, to outsiders, the sum would be close to astronomical; but once he holds the killer’s skull in one hand, he’ll gladly toss in his own cash to help with relief. T'Challa's net worth dwarfs Stark’s, after all.

In time the renegades gather near the center of the tarmac. There is only one craft they make take: the Quinjet, parked in the hangar behind T'Challa's back.

Stark and Rogers have thrown words at one another throughout their fight so far. While T’Challa does not concern himself with the minutiae of their squabble, he had nonetheless picked up on one line uttered by Rogers even before the fighting had begun.

_More Winter Soldiers?_

Stark had not deemed the tale worth hearing. T’Challa, too, finds this notion ridiculous.

_More of these machines, awaiting orders?_

And then the most preposterous line of all—one that pierces deep into his bones—

_Barnes is innocent—?!_

No. A likely story, and nothing more. If the Captain has proven willing to betray and attack his fellow Avengers, then stooping so low as to lie his way out of this is surely not such a stretch. James Buchanan Barnes stands at his side, and the line of his sight hits T’Challa’s as though he can see straight through the mirrored eyes of his helmet.

“Classic Battle Royale, huh,” Monica laughs inline. T’Challa idly wonders whether she’s grabbed popcorn for watching this fight. “I’ve got a clear view of him, Majesty.”

T’Challa retracts his standard claws and instead unsheathes his needle-nosed set. "As do I."

“Ooh, phasers are now set to kill!” Monica chuckles before taking a deep breath and cracking her knuckles. “Bast be with you, T'Challa.”

“With us both, Monica.” Using her personal, chosen name feels right; she has dropped everything on a moment's notice to find this man, has dedicated incredible time and effort to ensure T'Challa has made it this far.

He had completed his own devotionals to Bast before arriving at the airport; but, now that he can see the monster’s face so clearly in this blazing sunlight, T'Challa beckons the attention of another god entirely.

 _Sekhmet_ , he orders _, ready yourself for my offering._

His enemies begin to sprint unanimously toward the hangar, toward his team. Well, three sprinting and two flying, Wilson and the scarlet-clad Rromani girl. He himself bolts forward, the Widow on his right and the Iron Patriot taking to the air at his left. All of them fade away through the dark walls of his narrowed vision.

Again the tunnel closes in, until Barnes is all he sees.

The killer runs directly toward him at full speed, his jaw clenched in determination and the metal arm refracting that hot, hot sun as their blows collide. Time slows to a crawl.

How Barnes had managed to obtain a fresh tactical vest, T’Challa suddenly craves to know. In the day since the _asset's_  escape, he’d swapped his ragged clothing for clean cargo pants and boots, had dematted his hair and scrubbed his face. He looks remarkably human, more so than T’Challa wants to admit. Nothing at all like the demonic machine tearing its way through the GSG9 complex, not even by way of his glinting eyes. They contain too much life, too much vigor. Not the cold, flat leer of a beast, not by far.

He looks no more villainous than T’Challa himself does.

_“Ungh—!”_

Barnes lands an embarrassingly clean hit within moments, clocking him dead in the face. T’Challa chides himself on this amateurish lapse of attention. This murderer's gleaming facade is but a trick, one of the same caliber used to ensnare Rogers and Wilson and their little friends. Cold-hearted assassins can look any way they so choose, and the _asset_ is surely the coldest of them all.

While the blow does not cause T’Challa direct pain, it does nonetheless halt his momentum by a great measure. Their exchange is a remarkably even one; for every ten hits T’Challa lands on him, Barnes returns one, but with tenfold force. Suited up, T'Challa presents an infinitely greater danger than he had when armed with only his limbs; still, Barnes' movements are a degree less predictable than they had been the day before. Gone, along with the steel webbing that had coated his gaze, are the mechanical movements and textbook blocks, however solid they may have been. There are elements of different men present, somehow; a street-brawler here, a wartime commando there. Twice T'Challa finds himself smiling in appreciation of a particularly well-placed hit.

His smile is one that cracks with something akin to regret; they are admittedly well-matched, he mourns. Grieves.  _It is a shame your filthy soul is not one destined for the veld, murderer, or I would have loved to spar with you well into the next life._ That this man had chosen the path of a villain, to stain his hands with innocent blood, is a horrific shame for more than one reason.

What now cuts into T’Challa’s unwarranted sorrow is not the booming howl of a demon, but the cry of a man. To hear the killer speak directly to him, for the first time since Bucharest, that infuriatingly wistful gaze somehow steadily holding his own.

“I _didn’t—kill—_ your _father,”_ Barnes whimpers through gritted teeth, his metal fist holding T’Challa back by his throat.

It undeniably sounds like an admission. The biting burden his words carry makes each sound crack and quiver, and the red rimming of Barnes' eyes matches the wetness in his voice. It's too much, too unreal. It's incomprehensible.

T’Challa _will not_ _have it._

He has not come so far, so close, to accept such blatant falsehoods. Those poor souls whose last moments were swallowed in blistering pain will not allow him to fold, not now. Barnes is _lying_ , he swears, and feebly at that. The Black Panther will not be swayed.

T’Challa’s own arm cannot quite reach Barnes’ neck, held at only a millimeter’s bay with that same monstrous strength Barnes had exhibited the day before. But even if he cannot crush the killer’s throat, he can still speak.

“Then why,” he growls in return, “did you _run?”_

The moment the words leave his mouth, T’Challa sinks to the Berlin complex’s tiled flooring, sore and spent.

His prey falls to the clutches of another hunter, one altogether undeserving of his exquisite prize.

The Bucharest tunnel collapses in on him, and T’Challa’s world is rendered void.

There’s a mirror set before him now, one reflecting his uncovered face, as though his armor has been removed without warning. Glistening eyes in exhaustion-sunken sockets betray a lack of words behind a set of raw, cracked lips pursing in agony. Hands encircle throats, but each refrains from squeezing, only trapping one another on each side of the reflection. Cruelly perfect symmetry.

There is no hunt, some small voice at the pit of T’Challa’s stomach whispers to him. Not one, not here. No hunt and no hunter.

They are both preyed, his own voice tells him. They have both been struck. They’ve each taken a stomach-clenching hit, he and his haggard reflection. They have known brutal, cripplingly personal loss, have known suffering at the hands of ghouls far more villainous than they. For all their talents and skills and tenacity, neither is quite so powerful in the end.

 _Kindred spirits_. This is what that small voice says, steadily deepening and softening all the while, until he no longer recognizes it as his own.

It’s a familiar voice nonetheless. It belongs to his blessed father T’Chaka.

 _This cannot be. This cannot be_. T'Challa is hallucinating, he’s overexerted himself, that is all. Perhaps one of the other fighters has hit him with noxious gas, or a drug-tipped dart, or a concussion, for this cannot _be_.

But for all the hard data and undeniable proof and unavoidable extrapolation in the world, T’Challa cannot help but feel that something, somewhere has gone terribly, horrifically wrong.

_You know it to be true, my heart._

A weathered hand reaches from the sky, brushes away a single tear from T’Challa’s stinging eye, and cups his cheek, a thumb reverently stroking his lips. In his reflection, a matching hand mirrors these gestures. T’Challa sees from the subtle folds in the central finger of both hands that they each lack a ring. A ring he’s stolen. He has looted the dead like a common criminal.

In failing to protect T’Chaka, the Black Panther himself had played an unforgivable part in his demise.

T’Challa looks into the mirror and sees his father’s killer. He tells himself that this is what he sees. He gnashes his teeth, wails and moans.  _It was me. You died by my failure, by my hands, Papa, and I will never have you back._ He is no more destined for that lovely green  _veld_ than is the man he's been chasing.

But for all the good this does, his father’s soft fingertip still shushes him. _You know better._

He looks his reflection in the eye, and balks. This face, this killer’s face, he hates it. Those deep blue eyes are ruining him, cutting him open, draining him of his precious purpose, his sole remaining well of lifeblood. It runs dry, until the void inside his heart matches the one engulfing him whole.

He wants to tear that face to shreds. Wants to hold that face in his hands and caress one roughened cheek with his claws. Wants to press one bare fingertip to that softly quivering lip. _Hush._

T’Challa wants to kiss his reflection, gently, deeply, with purpose, tasting the salt of his reflection’s tongue and the inhaling the heat of his shuddering breath. He wants to maintain this immaculate symmetry even as two become one. He wants to achieve balance, to achieve unity, once and for all. He wants to forgive, just as his father has forgiven him.

T’Challa knows what he wants. What he wants is—this person is— _Barnes is—_

T'Challa punches that ghastly mirror with his metal fist, watches each sharp piece fly away into the sun-bleached sky. A single, oily drop remains in his well, hardening his heart and bolstering his will. He has a duty to complete. He will end this hunt, no matter what it costs his own health. His debt to his land, his people, and the soul of his father remains unpaid, every soft-speaking specter in his bones be damned. He will not have it so.

 _No longer._ His purpose consumes him, floods his veins with new blood, thick and hot. _It ends here._

The killer flies backward from the force of the Panther’s all-powerful midair kick. Wasting no time, T’Challa smoothly propels himself up from the concrete with one hand and steadies his sprinting with the other.

His target has crashed into a sturdy pile of elastic-bound crates. He’s clearly winded, is slow to recover. He looks dazed, confused. Looks finished.

T’Challa sees him. Sees his fear, his despair, his dread. Barnes looks up to his opponent as though in slow motion, those deep blue eyes dilating in terror, the veins in his throat pulsing so violently as to nearly rupture.

“—witch! Look ou—” There is another familiar voice screeching through his radio, but it’s muted, muffled by his own furious roaring. That neck is _his._

The Black Panther lunges with one outstretched hand toward that soft throat. This is his purpose. This will be his path to balance, to unity—by destroying that sordid _thing_ he had reflected in that damned mirror, reducing two to one, once and for all. His claw wraps cleanly around that hot, pulsing neck.

 _Sekhmet,_ he snarls _, Father, and all of my dead children. This is for you._

But it is not to be.

His scream is a silent one as a cloud of vivid red light ensnares his claw, freezing it in place. The killer gazes at him through half-lidded eyes, his metal arm raised only partially, as though in exhaustion, not having expected this momentary salvation. Barnes had undoubtedly anticipated his own demise then and there.

 “—using a dark energy field manipulated via bioelectric currents,” he finally processes Monica shouting inline. “Are you not listening to me?! Get away from her, _now!”_

Could he only. But he’s trapped, wholly ensnared as Monica shrieks, and no amount of his struggling comes close to overpowering the red glow’s searing hold.

_NO—_

T’Challa is midair, soaring, upside-down and out of control. He’s been hurled halfway across the whole damn tarmac as though the Rromani girl had launched him from a cannon.

He doesn’t register his landfall. There’s no single moment of impact, no crunch of bone nor any squelch of bursting flesh. The lining of his armor is designed precisely for such landings, he would come to remember later.

However much time he truly spends prone, lying face down near the mouth of the hangar, he cannot tell. He again feels suspended in space, a rag doll in a metal suit, lifeless and limp and cold. Shattered pieces of a broken mirror plague him, clustering into constellations that reveal half-familiar shapes and colors before breaking apart just as quickly. Monica’s voice is in his ear, but again he cannot discern words.

Explosions continue rock the ground beneath him. In time he can hear whispers of his allies in his radio. An ant becomes a giant. A little boy takes the giant man down, just like in that really old movie. The Captain pins the boy beneath a crumpling plane dock, and they both drop what they're doing to tell everyone they're from New York. The witch is hurt, and the Vision breaks rank to help her. It glides toward his opponent and holds her in its arms, confirms she’s down, but it does not _finish her_.

This is what boggles T’Challa—that the Vision remains at her side, that it soothes her until her breathing steadies, that it shields her from further blasts. It cares for its enemy. That much is clear.

_How can this be?_

It seems an eternity passes before T’Challa can finally heave himself up onto his feet. The ground contorts into violent waves, and it takes everything in his power not to trip and fall.

His radar tells him the Widow is nearby, anticipating Rogers’ and Barnes’ approach. They’ve broken away from the rest of their team, who have busied themselves with distracting T’Challa’s allies, likely to give the two of them a shot at the Quinjet.

Now is his best chance. _Now, or never_. Never is not an option.

Through the ever-tightening aperture of his tunnel's mouth, T’Challa sees the Widow, sees her blocking Rogers and Barnes from the Quinjet. He owes her a great deal; it is thanks to her tipoff that he stands here now.

_Thank you, Romanoff. Now let us finish this._

She raises her weapons just before disappearing behind those black walls cinching T’Challa’s eyes. All he can see is Barnes, now, but he knows that he and the Widow have the killer trapped. He ignores the humming in his ears, the muffled echoes spouting all manner of warnings. He will not heed them. He is right where he needs to be.

Three steps more and Barnes is as good as—

“I’m going to regret this,” he suddenly hears the Widow sigh.

All at once, white-hot pain courses across every inch of T'Challa's skin. Bolts of lightning pierce his armor, and the bite of acid cloys his senses. He can smell only copper, only rust, and his ears fill with static. Each labored step he takes drives the pain further in, until he can no longer bear to move forward.

_NO NO NO NO_

He falls. This time, he does feel the ground.

Betrayed, by a Black Widow.  _Should have known._

_Should have listened. Should have—I should have—Monica—Ayo, Aneka—S’Yan—_

_Father—_

As Barnes and Rogers climb into the Quinjet, the tunnel collapses before him. The aperture closes, choking out all light. No more opening awaits his emergence. He has no future.

Back into the void he falls.

 _It is better this way_ , T’Chaka’s voice reassures him, _for he who desires revenge must dig two graves._

 _Not revenge_ , T’Challa pleads, his voice reduced to an echo, a penumbra. _Justice, Father. Retribution. I must—I cannot—_

 _Oh?_   His blessed father smiles so widely that his eyes narrow into curly-lashed slits. _Pardon me, my heart. It is just so very difficult to see your sweet face through that mask you wear._

A mask? T’Challa lifts his hands to his face. It’s there, thick like oil and melting into his skin. It's been covering his eyes this whole time.

He attacks it with his own claws, will happily shred himself to pieces if it means his father can see him. But it seems he can only tear his face open, letting the wretched mask sink in even deeper.

 _I cannot—I cannot remove it_ , T’Challa stammers, panicking, his eyes spilling over.  _Father_ —Papa, _I'm—I've—_

Time flies in the wrong direction. He shrinks until his hands are a child’s, his fingers stubby and soft. His voice grows high-pitched with fright. He wants the thing _off_ , but it will not budge. His little lungs heave with wet sobs.

_It—it has become me—I cannot—Papa, help—!_

_Nonsense._ T’Chaka laughs, clapping his worn hands together. _It is no more melded into you than is that helmet underneath. It will come away in time._

 _Time._ Therein lies another problem altogether. _I may not have time_ , he cries. _I may be too late already—_

 _Too late? Too late?!_ His father scoffs. _You, my son, are Wakandan! Cunning and unbowed! Your resources are considerable, or have you forgotten?_

_Papa—please, I'm not—it's too much—_

_O heart,_  T'Chaka sighs, _your mind and body are strong as ever. T'Challa, light of my life, you have all the time you will ever need._

T’Challa cannot stem his own weeping for all the world. This sentiment is one too lovely, too rich for his grayed vision and static-burnt ears to filter into his splintering head. It cannot be so. He cannot bring himself to believe in such a thing.

 _No time. He’s gone. I’ve lost him. He’s—_ _Father, I—_

 _You will find a way,_ are T’Chaka’s parting words. _Should you so choose._

The jet has lifted off, T’Challa dully registers. Here, then gone. He is alone, alone with but the memory and advice of a specter, an illusion. A product of his own delirium, surely. Nothing of substance.

But, while he’s here, trapped in this caved-in tunnel, there is hardly anything better for him to do. There is nothing else at all. Logical validity gives way to only the haze of boredom, to the ache of loneliness.

T'Challa sighs, then sheathes his claws. Takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes.

_Run on, Father. Do not wait for me. And… thank you._

Before his thoughts give way to cool, soothing darkness, he does choose.

* * *

He’s up there just to watch. Again.

There’s that initial wave of disgust, flowing through him like an irradiated breeze, upon realizing that the whole of human history has led to this precise moment. That everything ever achieved, everything ever lost, every meeting of minds and every irreparable split between souls has culminated in this particular instant.

Sam watches, upside-down, his limbs pulled tight against his torso, as that yellow beam nails the Iron Patriot cleanly in the chest.

How unlikely, that it really has come to this, Sam thinks. How incredible, in the purest sense of the word. How contrived this whole mess really is, now that he thinks about it. How weird and how wrong.

They’re brothers, he thinks as he watches the Iron Patriot’s red indicator lights flicker into death. Not brothers like himself and his family’s pensive Ranger, Moises, or their staunch Marine, Jacob. They’re both gone, buried deep in the earth, while Rhodes is right there, still airborne, if not for long. Sam likes to think he and Rhodey have been brothers for even longer than they’d both known, tied together at the wrists by the lightest of elements.

A legend within the Air Force and without, James Rupert Rhodes. His one hundred and thirty-eight incredible missions have all been chronicled, the vast majority of them heavily lauded. 

It’s one thing to stand among the Avengers. It’s a different thing altogether to fly alongside a god.

_How can a god fall?_

That there’s no clear culprit here is the agonizing thing. Vision had fired without checking his target, his attention absorbed in concern for Wanda, the only one who can understand him at his core. He'd come here to aid Stark, his de facto father, and to bring Wanda home, to safety. Sam himself had tucked and retracted his wings to dodge the beam, a blameless move in and of itself.

Sam is here because they have a vital mission to complete, no matter who it is that completes it. Prioritizing Steve and—and Bucky—the two super-durable super-soldiers—had made the most sense, or he wouldn’t have made that call. It still makes sense, even when nothing else does. And, right now, nothing else does.

Sam knows good and well that the last thing this planet needs is a handful of Winter Soldiers awake and under the control of a man willing to blast a hole in the U.N., willing to kill a benign world leader in broad daylight. The Winter Soldiers aren’t even to blame, the wretched things.

It’s all Zemo, Sam tells himself. Zemo is the culprit. That man is why his hero and brother has been shot out of the air.

But the man isn’t a man so much as a memory, a faded photograph in ill-rendered splotches of black and white, thousands of miles away beneath a thick coat of dust. He'd slipped through Sam's fingers in Berlin like wind, dissolving into air before Sam's own eyes as the panicked crowds had stampeded. Zemo is a ghost, and Sam can’t blame this chain of events something that isn’t real. Who can he blame?

Rhodes himself had ordered the hit. Had called for Sam’s own—his—

 _Could’ve been me,_ he can only think as he dives.  _Should've been me._ He should be well on his way now to joining Moises and Jacob and Riley.

But it’s not him. It’s Rhodes, with that gaping hole in his chest.

 _The_ Colonel Rhodes. These three words had danced through his head during the entire Sokovia episode, even more frequently than _I Am Robot is actually happening_ and _Wonder if that punkass Barnes is seeing any of this_. 

As Sam dives, he cannot help but remember that fateful day. Sokovia is a crater denting the plane of his memories. All of his marbles rolling across that smooth surface are inevitably drawn in as if by sheer gravity, doomed to circle that ever-deepening pit, spiraling down until they are swallowed by his own quicksand. Sam knows he’ll never escape that place and time. None of them will.

But while he’s here, with these metal bodies falling from the sky, he watches. It's the only reason why he's here, after all.

Iron Patriot flies more efficiently than Iron Man, no doubt about that. There’s an unnecessary showmanship in the latter’s dramatic flourishing absent in the Patriot’s impressively clean dives and tight swoops. Rhodes belongs to both earth and air, Sam cannot help but conclude. The officer has the constitution to remain grounded while thousands of feet above sea level, yet can just as easily spout his unbridled idealism with both feet planted firmly on a boardroom floor.

Of all the reasoning in favor of the damn Accords that Sam would hear a year later, only Rhodey’s had actually stirred some small grain of consideration within him. Stark's arguments were undeniably based in his own guilt, but Rhodes' each contained a plausible level of logic.

It’s no small wonder, then, that Sam had spent so much energy arguing with Rhodey in particular. Bickering, really, in hindsight. _And for what?_

His vision blurs as he dives, his eyes burning as they flood.

Because Sam is a good airman. An excellent one. He’s charted their velocities already, knows the effects of their comparative masses on their speeds, the highest possible thrust of his FALCON jets, the wind direction, the air resistance, the tilting of the damn world itself. Rhodes doesn’t just fall; he plummets. Like a rock. Like Sokovia, slated only to become another crater.

There’s an unnameable monster that lives in the core of the earth, Sam knows. This world-beast has grabbed Rhodes’ whole form with one massive, invisible hand, and is yanking him down more quickly than even Iron Man can jet from however much higher up.

Sam knows in his bones that Rhodey won’t make it. He knows what’s going to happen. And if he must watch, if he must bear witness to yet another laser-targeted nightmare, then he can at least rise to meet it. Can fall to meet it.

Sam wonders, as he dives, how differently this whole day would have gone had he _listened_ to his friend and brother and hero and role model Colonel James Rhodes, back in that cold boardroom.

It’s been on him the whole time, he thinks, as he inevitably misses the catch by a matter of meters.

Sam all but welcomes the searing blast of Stark's repulsor beam. It’s a scratch compared to the gouging of his own heart from his ribcage that he’s been feeling for the past eight seconds. He thinks it’s been eight seconds. He could be wrong.

Pain disregards time. 

* * *

**THE RAFT**

Sam wakes up on a gurney, to the frantic beeping of an EKG monitor. This isn’t Pakistan, though. Air smells wrong, doesn’t feel warm enough, or cold enough.

He smells salt. Is it his own blood? Or Riley’s?

The world-beast taps him on the shoulder. His hands spaz.

_Rhodey’s blood?_

“Spiking again—get the sedative—” English, not Urdu.  _Where am I?_

“The hell’s going on? He’s not enhanced, nothing abnormal in his phys—”

Samuel Wilson is a man inside of another man’s head. He’s wearing his favorite sky blue button-down and pressed khakis, plus the same style of boat shoes his NYU homies had lambasted him for preferring to Timbs. He’s calmly explaining to whoever these sorry excuses of medical professionals are that his convulsions are merely an acute symptom of latent post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s got charts, he’s got labels, he’s hurling them forward with all of his strength and each and every time they only crash into the inside of his skull, each shattering into dust, into smoke.

He’s trapped inside this head, trapped in these manacles, he’s bolted into a steel box and he’s still better off than his hero James Rhodes, who has fallen dead stick from a thousand feet in the air.

Sam wakes up again feeling the slightest of jolts against his chest. It’s a nickel-sized spark plate sealed into the synthetic fibers of his skintight shirt. Remotely-controlled, no doubt. For every square foot of his new place, there are four security cameras that he can count. Sam knows exactly where he is. 

 _This_ had been his favorite thing to use in his argument against Rhodes. Because it had revealed something remarkable in the man’s value system.

_“You can’t have oversight without enforcement methods, Sam. I can’t believe I need to tell you this.”_

_“Three weeks’ minimum imprisonment before we can call a fucking lawyer. You’re really cool with that?”_

They both have to know that what’s on paper is a goddamn lie. They both surely know how red tape can prolong weeks into months, years, decades. They’ve both undoubtedly lost too many friends and relatives to the gaping maw of the prison-industrial complex, enhanced or not.

Yet Rhodes’ mouth had remained a steady, thin line. _“Okay, alright. Then let’s assume a USAF standpoint, Sam. If I take aggressive combative action without the okay from my superiors? You know there’ll be a whole lot more for me to worry about than court-martialing and dishonorable discharge. I hurt my own reputation, I damage that of my squad's, my whole unit's, and I give the people watching one more reason to hate my country."_

 _“But you’d be granted due process,_ ” Sam had countered, earning a smile from Steve and an uncharacteristically dramatic eye-roll from Nat. _“That’s why we have the damn court martial in the first place.”_

 _“You really think that’s why it’s there?”_ Rhodes had countered, his jaw slackening for a solid second. _“And not just to placate internal affairs?”_

 _“You two are seriously gonna argue over whether the U. S. legal system is worth upholding?”_   By then Stark had begun pinching the bridge of his nose. _“Because—”_

 _“Tony,_ ” he and Rhodes had simultaneously snapped, _“you’re white.”_

Meals at the Raft come twice a day and taste suspiciously devoid of caloric value. Sam knows strength-draining when he sees, eh, tastes it. What he can’t get over is how, out of the four Avengers held in the raft per the Accords’ fine print, only one has the physiology technically constituting that of an _enhanced person._ That they’re all grouped together nonetheless almost as flattering as it is infuriating.

Thaddeus Ross clearly doesn’t see any issue in that.

Sam knows the face of an unabashed cracka when he sees one. He gets a dull squint where the others in his cell block get snappy comments and, in Barton’s case, a low chuckle. In an ideal world, even one wherein he were still beholden to the pork-stuffed Accords and this shitstain who’d drafted them, he’d not so much as cast a glance toward Ross. Would say nothing. Would ask nothing of the sleazebag.

“What happened to Rhodes,” Sam evenly asks, looking Thaddeus Ross directly in his yellowed eyes.

“I’m glad you asked, Wilson.” Ross gives a buoyant smile. “Because, while it may bring you some comfort to know he indeed survived his fall, one of the country’s finest Colonels has been deemed paraplegic as of an hour ago. No thanks to yourself.”

“Fuck you,” Barton immediately spits. Literally spits. Sam can hear the telltale droplets hit the thick bars of his cell. “None of us would’ve even fought at that damn airport if you hadn’t guilt-tripped Stark into swallowing your little rulebook—”

“I’d say that’s up for debate.” Ross wrinkles his nose. “In any case, I’m not here to prolong that particular argument. Instead…” He casts his gaze between the two of them, toward Lang’s cell. “I imagine you miss your daughter terribly, Scott.”

Sam rolls his eyes. _Here we go._

Lang, for his part, continues to drum his palms against his bunk without missing a beat. In the hours they’ve spent here so far, he’s drummed on every surface within reach, including himself. Another few hours and Sam thinks he might break down and join in. “Sure do! Almost as much as Hawk Guy misses his own kids, probably.”

“Barton? Don’t you miss your family?”

“I saw ‘em yesterday, Chief. Think I’ll be okay for a bit.” There’s a drop of acid in Barton’s tone, just enough.

“Because,” Ross continues, “the minute you do want to see them again? Why, I’d be happy to bring them by for a visit. Hell, if you boys behave nicely, I might even decide to let you out with just an anklet—”

“If we give you Steve’s location.” Sam is too tired and too irritated for this lukewarm foreplay.

“Bingo. You always were a smart one, Wilson.” The patronizing venom in Ross’ drawl suggests he assumes otherwise. “Believe me, there are a thousand things I’d rather be doing than watching you boys sit around all day. Tracking down wherever all your family members mysteriously disappeared off to won't be much of a chore, but my plate really is full enough as is.”

 _Good._ So his mother had indeed followed his instructions, and the others theirs. Sam’s not a particularly religious guy. A classic PK, really. But right now he’s thanking God like never before in his life.

Plus—trust a sucker like Ross to let that detail slip. Nick had given Sam enough stories involving this chump to last a lifetime. _“SWORD in name only, I’ll put it that way. He’s not sharp enough to actually merit the title.”_

God, does Sam miss Nick something fierce. He can only imagine how differently Nick would’ve handled this bullshit.

At the same time, Sam wonders how long ago this Raft was constructed. And who'd authorized it. And who'd have known about it, regardless.

“And if I knew where Spangles and Sputnik were headed,” Lang exclaims in the slowed, sunny cadence of a kindergarten teacher, “I might even think about that offer! What about you, Birdman? Wait, that's both of you. Uh. Purple Arrow?”

“What, like I had any idea where we were gonna go? ‘Cuz, no lie, I had my hopes up for Tahiti. I hear the waves at this time of year are really—”

“Oh, for crying out—all right. _Wilson._ ” Ross walks down the cell block until he turns in place to face Sam directly. “You can’t convince me that Rogers didn’t at least fill _you_ in. Hell knows how close the two of you are.” The ill-masked disgust in the lines of his face speaks volumes.

Sam cracks a grin. “Y’know, Thaddy—I’m a little curious. What’s in all this for you? Just how many taxpayer dollars went into your glorified Gitmo here?” _And how much of it stays here?_

“Please, Wilson. I’d hardly consider what you’ve experienced here to be on comparable grounds to Guantanamo. Transparency and accountability are the chief reasons the Accords exist, after all. And if you’re willing to work with me, I might just reduce your three weeks to—”

 _“Thaddy,_ ” Clint slowly repeats. “I’m keeping that. Mhm. That’s not going away anytime soon.”

“Barton, you might be surprised to know that just a little more deference could get you—”

“Now that you mention it, though, I did wanna ask you something.” Sam leans against his cell bars and shoots Ross a dazzling smile. “Is Everett your kid? Or your mom? ‘Cuz he looks like a twelve-year-old morphed with a Golden Gir—”

 _“Enough,_ ” Ross groans, so abruptly that Sam considers himself victorious in that his spark plate hasn't fired off. “I’ll allow you some time to review your options, gentlemen. In any case, Miss Maximoff might be more eager to rejoin the General Population than yourselves.” He steps back toward the security gate. “I don’t suppose any of you have spent extended time in a straightjacket. Not pleasant, not one bit.”

 _Wanda_. Sam clenches his hands into fists so tight he can feel his nails cutting into his palms. _Just wait til I'm out, you sick fuck._ Extended time in straightjackets, indeed.

As the gate relocks behind Ross’s retreating back, Sam thinks about Mark Fuhrman. That jackass’s face has been flickering through his mind’s eye more frequently with each passing hour.

Maybe it’s readily on his brain because _The People v. O. J. Simpson_ had recently aired on FX, and he had deemed it an acceptable way to get Steve caught up to speed on that whole fiasco. Their hours of discussion that had followed each episode had brought them even closer together than their other nightly activities.

Maybe it’s because this whole mess Sam's in now also has such a profoundly narrative quality to it, like all his shock and pain have been arranged by unseen forces for the world-beast’s entertainment alone. Having a perfectly decent prosecution torpedoed by racial illiteracy probably does make for great TV, he supposes. At least for certain viewer segments.

Never mind how the abuse goes unpunished this long after the fact. Never mind how the corruption endures to this day, and along with it the institutionalized brutality, the rough rides, the boilerplate character assaults. The unending detainment.

Yeah, that might just be why.

 _“If you toe the line,”_ Rhodes had actually said to his face, _“nobody’s gonna lock you up, Sam. The Raft is a worst-case scenario, anyways. They’d suspend you from deployment and confiscate your wings long before even bringing that up.”_

Well, Sam thinks, Rhodey had toed the line. Rhodey had done nothing wrong. _And now…_

Sam closes his eyes, leans back against the wall, and prays for Rhodey. Prays for Steve and—and Bucky. It’s only been a few hours, and still he can’t believe just how much he misses that jerk. If Sam ever sees him again, he might just consider possibly entertaining the notion of pulling his seat up for the guy. Maybe by a whole inch.

Maybe, years from now, when all this shit is sorted and forgotten? Assuming they all survive to that point? Sam will absolutely make sure they all get to vacation in _fucking_ Tahiti. He passes his time in the Raft by imagining Bucky sipping a Mai Tai on the beach, using that stupid arm of his as a sunlight reflector to get an even tan. 

 _Still hate you_ , Sam laughs to himself.  _But you'd better give that Zemo what he's got coming. And_ _get Steve out of there in one piece._

In time Sam joins Barton and Lang’s drum circle. He can practically hear Ross’s exasperated groan through the ceiling.

* * *

  **NEW ORLEANS**

"You got Rambeau. ... _Blade?_ The fuck? ...No, no, I'm just—uh uh. Uh huh. Wow. No. _No,_ because you already know my stance on anything involving water. Nuh-uh. Okay, look. If Danvers is gonna steal my alias, then she can go ahead and take that shit favor from me while she's at it. Plus I already RSVP'd to Trombone Shorty at Tipps—I know, right?—and that's at the same time. So tough luck, sweetheart. Yeah, yeah, I know. Fuck BP and fuck Roxxon. Fuck FEMA. Yeah? Yeah. Heh. Alright, hold on just a sec."

"Do I wanna know," Remy asks as Monica forwards the call. Trust some crazy fucker calling himself _Blade_ to interrupt a perfectly good date. The magnolias are blooming, the birds are singing, the tourists have all but abated this stretch of Magazine for the night, and now he's gonna have to shell out for two more French 75s, minimum, to get Monica's mind off of work.

The hero otherwise known as Photon shoves her phone back into her purse and blows a stray curl away from her face. "Some bullshit about a vampire squad planning to hit an offshore rig tomorrow. He wants a lift at dusk. Thinks just 'cuz I owe him a favor that I'm gonna be up for flying him out. Fuck that."

The hero otherwise known as Gambit lifts his glass, and they clink. "Fuck that."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick, it's occurred to me just now that perhaps not everyone has read the [CA:CW Prelude comic](http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/02/15/the-hunt-for-crossbones-what-happens-between-winter-soldier-and-civil-war) wherein Barnes kills his handlers and other HYDRA remnants following CATWS. I'd have written a very different fic if that revenge spree had not gone down lol.  
> Thanks again to Trev for your uplifting comments :D

* * *

**ATLANTA**

It’s by anything but sheer luck that Monica catches wind of the killer.

She’s bundled Leipzig, Berlin, and Vienna polizei chatter, every major airport’s traffic logs, the bugs she’d asked Ayo to place in the GSG9 complex, local news, national news, a plethora of deepnet forums, and every conceivably related Twitter tag into one monstrous feed, one hooked to voice recognition and flash-transcription software she’d written herself a few years back. Real-time crawlers send anything her way that could lead to Barnes’ present location, and three other programs work in tandem to weed out redundant information while prioritizing facial recognition matches.

She’ll get it within hours, tops, she’s told herself. _Found him before easily enough. I’ll find him again._

What she finds instead rocks her world.

_“Is T’Challa awake?!”_

“Not yet,” S’Yan murmurs inline, both words tremoring with fear. “The Widow used a specially-designed electric stunner on him—the bolts sunk straight through the biovibranium. It’s taken him twice as long as usual to heal completely; praise Bast they were but minor flesh wounds.”

 _Stunner. Flesh wounds._ “Her goal was not to kill him.” What in all of creation are those odds?

“That is what we cannot wrap our heads around,” Ayo says on the same channel. “It was no misfire. She only put T’Challa down long enough to let Barnes and Rogers escape. The prince theoretically should be back to full health already.”

Monica feels the blood drain from her face. “And he’s not?”

“There is…” S’Yan’s voice crumbles, faltering for a moment. “He had broken into a—a fever, of some sort. His brainwaves were off the charts, though our IC team found nothing else awry in his system. The fever finally broke an hour ago; we have him resting here in the embassy, now, until the rest of the courtiers are ready for departure. Another hour, I estimate.”

 _A fever?_   “You don’t think this is a side effect of the assassin’s weapon?”

“It could well be. We have insufficient data to suggest otherwise. But, Lynne—" S’Yan halts abruptly, as though grasping for words that cannot fit on his tongue. “T’Challa—he talks in his sleep. He—he weeps. Begs for his father… calls out for Barnes—”

“Not surprising.” Monica kneads her temples. “It’s been the longest forty-eight hours of my life, and I can’t even comprehend how it’s been for you all.”

S’Yan takes a great, shuddering breath, and his tone grows wet. “I _told_ him, Lynne, I warned him time and time again what would happen—to throw himself into this mess so soon after losing his father, he—I—I should never have—”

“You must not blame yourself, S’Yan,” says Aneka. “Much older and wiser men than he have just as easily been subsumed by vengeance.”

Ayo makes a guttural affirmation. “Once we’ve returned home, we will ensure T’Challa has the time and space to—“

“S'Yan, none of this was your fault. It's mine.” Monica double-checks her rapid-uploading file queue. _Just a few more seconds…_ “I forwarded a Berlin polizei report to our group keyfeed just now. The psychological evaluator for Barnes—the one the U.N. had appointed—he’s been found, dead, in a Berlin hotel room. It is not the same man who made it into Barnes’ cell.”

“You are joking,” Ayo groans. “How long ago was the report filed?”

“Three minutes ago. What’s more, the GSG9 found a wig and prosthesis in the same room.”

“Prosthesis—a disguise?” S’Yan gives a single, dry laugh of disbelief.

“Not just any disguise.” Monica’s voice shakes, no matter how hard she clenches her jaw. “I recognize it from the footage I traced following the Vienna blast. They enabled their wearer to approximate the appearance of one James Buchanan Barnes.” She swallows. “Difficult as it may be to believe… the _asset_ was framed for the murder of King T’Chaka.”

Her words seem to echo eternally, as though they all stand together in the same, massive cave—a tunnel, really, one that only seems to grow longer with each passing second. _Framed._

 _It wasn’t him. T’Challa has hunted the wrong man, nearly to extinction. They all have._ Monica has, perhaps more than the rest of them combined.

“How can this be—?“ Aneka inhales sharply as she hits the section of the report. “You’re positive this isn’t a red herring…? Something to throw the polizei off his scent?”

“Look, all of you. This set of images is what I gathered from public security cameras between Vienna and Bucharest. Look at that face. Next…” The second set goes through now. “See these? It’s not necessarily the same man. Yes, the features bear ample similarities. But further down—the fourth image of the second set—right there. His left hand is flesh, not metal. All we had to go on was the face. I was so focused on the positive matches that I—that I ignored anything that could have contradicted it. All of this was for nothing—what if T’Challa had killed him?! Because of my mistake! If—”

“Come now, Lynne,” S’Yan consoles her. “A facial match alone still would have automatically warranted the _asset’s_ arrest and interrogation. It would have been absurd to not to immediately pursue him. For all you know, that image could well have been of Barnes wearing a glove. You musn’t beat yourself up over this.”

She knows S’Yan means well. He may even be right. But Monica’s insides feel as though they’ve iced over.

_You tracked the wrong man. Sent T’Challa to kill the wrong man._

Well, sure, someone had worked very hard to make the trail as obvious as they could, but— _still—_

Maybe it's just her perfectionism talking. Maybe not. Monica cannot say. All she knows is that picking up on that single, vital detail could have saved them all a world of grief. Even now, T'Challa would not be suffering from the Widow's attack. He'd be home, healthy, seeing to his father's planting ceremony.

 _I let my rage cloud my judgment._ Monica can only thank the gods that she hadn’t found out too late, that the man innocent of at least this crime still lives on in spite of her error.

T’Challa may owe her ten thousand drinks and a favor, but she now owes James Barnes a solid night’s tab, minimum. _There. Deflect it with humor._ The last of her weapons. 

“But—if this _is_ correct, then—” Aneka’s skyrocketing pulse is nearly audible through her keyhoops. “The true perpetrator is just as great of a threat. For one to track Barnes down, create those prosthetics, place the bomb, plant a false trail his way, find and murder the true evaluator, and _then_ infiltrate the GSG9 base by way of identity theft?! You are suggesting someone aside from HYDRA’s _asset_ could accomplish all this?”

“He had to have removed Barnes from interrogation to cover his tracks,” Ayo reasons. "It is exactly what I would have done, in his position."

“It’s not an utter impossibility.” The crown medic, N’Baza, has joined their chat. “In fact, it would defend the abrupt changes in Barnes’ behavior and physiological stress as captured by T’Challa’s keybead, and how he managed to break free from his containment. I’m inclined to believe this impostor drugged him with a designer steroid, though we could only confirm that from a tissue sample.”

“But,” Aneka asks, “why go to all this trouble to implicate HYDRA’s rogue _asset_ in King T’Chaka’s murder?”

“Because he’d have no defensible alibi.” Something akin to horror dawns in S’Yan’s tone. “No one to speak for him, no friends or family to provide witness accounts of him having been anywhere else at the time of the attack. He’s been on the run since 2014, virtually unseen the entire time. We arguably have more information on him than most—but they’re all assassination reports from the year before. Certainly nothing in the way of defense, not as of recently.”

“Smart,” Ayo murmurs. “Still, who the hell is capable of such a feat? Another rogue HYDRA agent—? An officer?”

“I have a clear shot of the psychiatrist’s impostor.” Monica takes a deep breath and plunges back into work-mode, dropping image after image into their keyfeed. “Cross-referencing the photos with the WExI's POI bank pinned him as one Colonel Helmut Zemo. His work within a Sokovian covert kill squad is highly documented, but the files are encrypted, unavailable to the public. I’ve packaged the few applicable ones and sent them anonymously to the GSG9, but who knows how long it will be before they take action?”

S’Yan slowly exhales. “But I take it you’ve been following this Zemo, Lynne?”

“Yes.” Oh, has she ever. “He’s already taken a commercial flight from Vienna to Noril’sk. I have the sky-eye on him now.”

Zemo had since taken a taxi to an abandoned warehouse, unlocked one massive bay door, and unloaded from within an ancient Humvee with snow treads. Wherever he drives to now, it is nowhere near the rest of civilization as she knows it, her satellites detecting not one living soul in any conceivable path he would take.

_What is your true goal, monster…?_

“Why Noril’sk?” S’Yan asks. “Practically the edge of the earth.”

“Perhaps he had to emigrate there after the Ultron Incident?” Aneka suggests. “He’d have been a refugee; could this be about the incident itself?”

“But then— _why_ murder T’Chaka? The king had no hand in that mess.” Ayo’s tone is heavy with misgivings. “If anything, Zemo’s decision to frame Barnes could suggest he has a personal vendetta against the _asset._ ”

“As good a guess as any,” S’Yan sighs. “We all know the minimum size of Barnes’ kill count while working under HYDRA.”

Uncomfortable silence follows for three interminable seconds.

“What we do know for sure is that Zemo has put astounding effort into framing Barnes,” Monica murmurs, “and is currently driving deep into Siberia. S’Yan, I have no precise coordinates, but we were able to infer from the 2014 SHIELD leak that the _asset_ was held in cryo in a Siberian base. Could Zemo be going to that same base now?”

“I believe you’re onto something, Lynne. Such a place could contain as of yet uncovered HYDRA intel. Evidence of further crimes or plots, even.”

Ayo clicks her tongue. “In any case, this finding is sufficient to warrant Zemo’s arrest and interrogation.” _The Black Panther has a new target_ , she need not verbalize. They all know the drill.

 _Will T’Challa regain his full health quickly enough?_   There are so very many unknowns, Monica laments. Anyone could be awaiting Zemo’s arrival; a kill squad, an army—all that remains of HYDRA, maybe. Another  _Soldier_ , for all she knows.

…why does that notion sound familiar?

_More Soldiers…?_

And it clicks, like so many lanterns springing to life with the last disappearing ray of sunlight.

 _“Damn it—”_ She pulls up the Black Panther’s HUD recording from the airport fight. Early on… oof, nearly skipped right past it— _there_.

From T’Challa’s point of view, Captain America faces Iron Man in the center of the airport tarmac. No exchanging of blows, not yet; he’s asking for help—they’ve got to get on a jet, and not to run from the police. They’re running _to_ somewhere.

 _More_ Soldiers. _I was right._ Monica sees their timeline now. It is horrifyingly tight.  _Fucking—_

In a separate feed, she sends a message to B'Tumba, one with instructions. “Everyone! I think I know what Zemo is—”

“T’Challa’s cerebral activity has returned to its normal level,” N’Baza announces, cutting her short. “We should be able to awaken him safely within the next half-hour.”

Monica winces; even if T’Challa could return to consciousness in the next minute, she would be sending him to his certain doom. _He’ll need backup_. Would Rogers and Barnes be enough?

“Everyone, the true killer is headed to Siberia to awaken more _Soldiers._ ” She uploads that footage segment to their keyfeed. “Barnes must know the precise location; if we don’t mobilize soon enough, he and Rogers could kill Zemo before T’Challa can retrieve him. Unless—unless the reactivated _Soldiers_ take them out first.” She’s not sure which possibility is worse.  _We've tormented this man for days, only for him to fall to a squad of supersoldiers?_

“Bast, be with me,” Aneka moans as she absorbs the video. “This is a nightmare.”

Monica has to agree. _Zemo has taken control of Barnes before._ He could harm far more than help, in the worst case scenario. The last thing she wants to imagine is pitting a potentially compromised Black Panther against however many _Soldiers_ Zemo has in store, even with Rogers helping. _More. Who else in that theater is authorized to fight—?_

Given the option, Monica would happily go so far as to alert Rogers and Barnes directly that the Black Panther would be joining them. Hell, she'd help construct their plan of attack. _The enemy of your enemy is your ally, no?_

But she has infuriatingly been unable to trace the damn Quinjet, which had dropped out of her sights as soon as it had launched. Its stealth tech is surely proprietary, she scowls, far beyond any other outsider tech she has found to date. Finding the means to access it would take hours that she cannot afford. As much as she enjoys picking on Tony Stark, she can at least begrudge him this one accomplishm— _wait._

“Hold up. I have an idea.”

As she pulls up her new pet project, Janice walks through the labs’ front entrance with an armful of pink pastry boxes. “Brought you some fuel, Mo’. Kinda already ate two of the sweet potato pies.” She does a double-take after kicking her sandals off. “Hey—you okay?”

“You have my thanks,” Monica replies as she infiltrates the Berlin Police intranet on a smaller screen. “I—I’m not—” She shakes her head and flings the Berlin report and Leipzig footage to a vacant screen far on her right. “Check this out, Jan. Your instincts about Barnes were right.”

Janice plops into the chair next to hers and places one of the boxes on the desk between them. “What the _…_? _…Damn_ , Mo. So the whole time, it really wasn’t—?” She inhales sharply. “Is T’Challa still down for the count?”

“Healing, thankfully, but still unconscious.” And with that, she’s in.

While only a virtual intelligence suite and not a full-on AI, FRIDAY still utilizes a number of sensory processes that strikes Monica as impressive for outsider tech. She sees Stark’s location: Copenhagen, on a helipad topping a medical center. Had Colonel Rhodes just now been airlifted to Columbia?

That the man had been so gravely injured in that fight will sit in the pit of Monica's stomach for the rest of her days. That fight of all fights, as meaningless and futile as any she had helped orchestrate.

Monica drops the police report to the top of FRIDAY’s highest-tier notification queue. _Pick it up pick it up pick it up—_

“What am I looking at, FRIDAY?” Stark’s tone is conversational, if on the icy side.  _Your projects are your friends, huh,_ Monica surmises.

_“Priority upload from Berlin Police.”_

Stark makes an almost imperceptibly small noise of triumph in his throat. “Fire up the chopper.”

“He is leaving the hospital,” Monica informs the others. _But to go where?_

They take off as FRIDAY relays the report. Janice sits at the edge of her seat, eyes wide. She always did love espionage thrillers, Monica remembers. _Gotta preorder us some tickets for that Bourne movie coming up._

“Son of a bitch,” Stark snaps once FRIDAY reveals the tidbit regarding the prosthetics. “Get this to Ross.”

 _Ross?_ Monica trains her attention to Stark’s location. He’s already far outside of Copenhagen, flying northwest at near sound-speed.  _Why northwest?_

There are two Rosses that immediately spring to mind; one of them, the leader of the GSG9, Monica hates on principle, given his meddling in T’Challa’s earlier hunt. The other, nicknamed _Thunderbolt,_ has crossed her desk a few times before. A former SWORD Director, he had once filed plans to crack Wakandan Central Intelligence firewalls. Using binary-based outsider code. _Embarrassing._

But, sure enough, FRIDAY forwards the report to one General Thaddeus Ross, the USA’s Secretary of State. Monica runs a rinse over the connection to find that he’s in the North Atlantic, halfway between Greenland and Iceland. Also mid-flight, she assumes, until she realizes his position isn’t moving. _Is he on a boat? An anchored one…?_

She checks FRIDAY’s background processes one more time and spots previous correspondence between Stark and Ross. Sees the name of a prison—the same name mentioned in those damned Accords.

“Awaken T’Challa,” Monica hisses, so abruptly that Janice nearly jumps out of her seat. _“Now.”_

* * *

**BERLIN**

T’Challa shies away from the bitter sting of white light.

 _Not yet. Please, not yet._ He is so very tired.

“—is an emergency, please, highness, listen to me—”

 _Emergency._ Wonderful.

With that, T’Challa reluctantly reopens his eyes, and regrets it immediately. But Aneka has seen him.

“Are you in pain?” She, Ayo, and N’Baza have gathered around his bedside. T’Challa sits up just enough to catch S’Yan’s gaze as he enters the room. “You’ve been out for nearly six hours!”

 _Six._ T’Challa sighs, sinking back into his thick pillow. He feels raw, like every inch of his skin has been scrubbed with steel wool. “What is the situation?”

On no small level, he doesn’t _want_ to know where he is, who is elsewhere, what developments have occurred as he’s slept, or what more could be occurring even now. He’s exhausted, and all this horrid white light feels too similar to having his eyes artificially dilated.

Moreover, he has no one to hunt.

For all T’Challa can tell, some otherworldly force has taken hold of him and violently wrung him out. Completely purged of the thick oil that had for so long burned him alive from the inside, he can only feel hollow. He feels empty—emptied. It’s not a glorious feeling, the admission of such a mistake, not by any stretch of the imagination. It carries the same ugly soreness as a hangover.

_Barnes…_

“Lynne has hacked into the Iron Man’s personal VI.” Ayo presses T’Challa’s necklace, its keybead inactive, onto his breast. “He’s gone to visit the captured renegades who were with Barnes and Rogers—even now, he may be learning of where they have flown. Somewhere in Siberia, where—”

“There is no need,” T’Challa murmurs, propping himself up on his elbows. His skin is drenched in cold sweat. “All of you, listen. As I slept, my father reached back to me from the _veld_.”

He gathers his words, knowing full well that they will seem completely off base, that he could come across as insane to those closest to him, to those who love him most. But he must speak.

“This whole time,” he continues, “I have tried to ignore my intuition, have ignored what it was I truly saw in Barnes each time I made contact with him. I told myself that my feelings were products of his lies, of his designs, to throw me off my path. But I will not deny the spirits their missive any longer.” He takes a slow, steady breath. “James Barnes is innocent of my father’s murder. I will no longer spend my time or energy attempting to capture him, not until Bast so wills it.”

He wholeheartedly expects Ayo to roll her eyes, expects a look shock from Aneka, for N’Baza to glance toward his brainwave monitors.

But all of them, including S’Yan, reply at once. “We _know_.”

“You—what? How?!” It’s with this jolting response that T’Challa finally sits up straight and fastens on his necklace.

At once a deluge of information sinks in from the keybead’s cool touch against his skin; the organic electrical signals twist into images and sounds until they flood his nervous system with the glyphs of typed words, time stamps, places—Berlin crime scene—disguise—more _Soldiers_ —oh. _Oh._

Oh, no, _no._  “Where is my suit?!”

“We mustn’t let him leave now,” N’Baza pleads to Ayo. “He’s currently hypoglycemic—there’s been a shock to his system—”

“I took the liberty of arranging the _suit case_ to be moved into the VTOL,” Monica’s voice cuts in. “T’Challa, you must go now. The jet’s fast, but even it can’t teleport.”

“Wha—when?” N’Baza glances between them all. “How could she have—?”

B’Tumba shuffles into the room then, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Miss Lynne is, eh, rather persuasive. I’ve ensured the VTOL’s medical kit is stocked with energy bars and one sachet of the heart-shaped herb. N’Baza, please let him go. You know what is at stake here.”

“But—” The doctor glances from Aneka to Ayo. “You two, more than anyone, must understand—if he is too fragile—if we lose our king before he’s even crowned—”

“Easy, N’Baza. This time, T’Challa is but our vanguard.” Aneka winks. “Ayo and I can jointly order the launch of a stealth corvette from home. It can rendezvous with T’Challa in Siberia not long after he and Stark arrive—but _only_ _if he leaves now._ ”

“A larger aircraft? But—why—?”

“To bring the cavalry,” Ayo folds her arms. Her grin appearing now is far more intimidating than Aneka’s. “A contingent of Winter Soldiers merits no small threat to world security, potentially even to Wakanda, unless it is neutralized now. Our sisters back home also know what must be done, and will see the task through; they can charge the prime acolytes with protecting The Three in their absence. As the External Affairs Advisor, S’Yan can retroactively authorize the deployment.”

By now T’Challa is on his feet, close to falling over from dizziness. His head pounds with a continual ache, and his knees threaten to give out beneath him. But he has a duty to complete.

“I will bring Helmut Zemo to justice, for his crimes against Wakanda, its people, and its king,” he utters slowly, drawing breath between each clause. “Failing the chance to recover him alive, I am prepared to kill him myself.”

B’Tumba whistles, earning a sharp look from Ayo. Still, T’Challa cannot help but laugh as he pulls on a compression shirt and his foot wraps.  _You were wise to heed Lynne,_ he signals to B'Tumba's keybead.

 _She terrifies me!_   B'Tumba shoots him a bemused look.  _But I know her head is in the right place._

“T’Challa, do know that it brings me unspeakable joy to hear of your meeting with your blessed father.” S’Yan squeezes his hand as they walk from the room. “His spirit is no less rich and efficacious now than it surely was as he lived; I do not believe it coincidental that Barnes has escaped your grasp thus far.”

T’Challa kisses his uncle on his forehead. “S’Yan, you have my thanks. And—and my apology. I should have heeded your words far earlier.”

“Then heed me now—go, Majesty! Bast run with you.”

As he heads toward the VTOL’s spot on the roof, he cannot help but concur with S’Yan’s so-professed belief. The potential threat of the _Soldiers_ and even the hunt for Zemo notwithstanding, T’Challa will not deny that he has one more very good reason to see this fight through: having failed to kill Barnes himself, it would be unacceptable to let another take his life now.

 _Villain or no_ , he swears, _you are still mine_. _And mine alone._

Rich, luscious heat pools in T’Challa’s core and spreads to his very fingertips, energizing him. This nightmare will end yet.

* * *

**RUSSIA**

Bucky hasn’t slept since Bucharest, and he’s starting to feel it. It’s a _Kuujjuaq, 21 April 2014, 04:16_ level of exhaustion; there’s an ion trail haunting the back of his neck, one belonging to eyes he can’t see but that he nonetheless knows aren’t far behind him at all.

“—could give Zemo to Everett Ross, yeah—but _only_ in exchange for your amnesty. He’s got to declare it on the spot, or no deal. That’s what we’ll do.” Steve’s jaw is set in resolution.

Bucky hasn’t slept in days and he still knows when Steve is being a hardheaded sunnavabitch. Jagged visions of a captain in a burnt leather jacket and costume helmet slash across his mind. There’s a fiery pit beneath them, between them, and the captain’s telling Bucky to go on without him. _Not without you_ , he wants to scream. Then he does scream it. Freed from those manacles, he thinks he can finally do what he wants. Ha.

 _You always do this_ , Bucky could scream right now. _Jumping into the fire without a plan._ Not plotting any escape routes, not thinking his options through. Steve, he just goes, until he hits a brick wall. Then he busts straight through it. God, Bucky could strangle him. It’s an all too familiar feeling.

“You really think they’re going to want to negotiate with you, Steve? After everything you’ve done? Everything _I’ve_ done?”

“Bucky, that wasn’t you. I don’t care how many times I have to tell you this, but however many it takes—”

“You might see it that way, but they won’t. They classified the rest of your friends as weapons—to be deployed, or to be locked up. Can you even imagine how I must look to them?” Bucky shakes his head. “And I was lucid when I made the HYDRA hits last year. It won't matter to them how awful those people were, Steve. It’s still murder. I knew it at the time. Still do.”

“Buck—”

“And that’s how they’re gonna see it, too. They’re not gonna negotiate with you, Steve. Not even for Zemo. I’m too valuable to them. They’ll want me in their custody, no matter what.” _And then_ , he laments, _it’s just a matter of time until someone else infiltrates—_

“Then—then we run.” Steve’s doing that action hero thing with his jaw again, and Bucky wants to punch himself in the head. “We can threaten to leave him somewhere, and it’ll be up to them to track him if they don’t—”

“That’s so fucking irresponsible, Steve. Jesus Christ.”

 _This_ is the guy that had kept the world safe since his defrosting four years back? Bucky’s wondering, now, when exactly Steve became so rash. Or has he been remembering all the wrong things? Whatever lurks in those greyed-out gaps he can’t even know whether he’s missed or not—maybe there’s more of Steve in there, a lot more. A crucial piece of him, not yet rendered in Bucky’s head. Steve's dark side, for lack of a better term.

Bucky’s wondering, now, whether it’s got anything to do with him.

“Hey,” Steve murmurs, reaching back to clutch his knee. “I’m still hashing it out, Buck. We haven’t reached that bridge yet, anyways.”

“But when we do?” Bucky sighs, admittedly wishing that sleep would just _take him_ , by force, right now, so these rampant thoughts can no longer wreak their havoc on his body. “Steve, I don’t even know if I should even leave the base once we’ve dealt with the other Soldiers—”

_“What?”_

The truth is, Bucky can’t get that image of a frozen-over Steve out of his head. Safe and secure and asleep inside of that glacier. No security cameras on him, no known coordinates, no trail to follow. No way for anyone to slip in and use him to kill dozens of innocent people. No chance.

God, does that sound good right now.

“Besides,” he continues, “even assuming we make it out of this fight alive? T’Challa’s still on my trail. He’s not going to rest until I’m dead.”

This much Bucky knows to be true. He’d seen those last desperate, lunging steps T’Challa had taken forward, even as the Widow’s Bite had fried him alive. In those searing seconds he could swear he’d seen those gorgeous black eyes even through that helmet, staring directly into him as always.  _He wants me._ And still does, without a doubt.

_He’ll find me. Just a matter of time._

“Then maybe he’ll believe us, once we have Zemo. If we show him the evidence—”

“What evidence, Steve? My own testimony, and—if we’re lucky, which we’re not—Zemo’s? A bunch of dead supersoldier bodies?” He thinks he could cry. “Surveillance footage?!”

“Maybe he could—or, instead, we’d—” Steve’s grasping at straws and Bucky knows it.

“Even _if_ , Steve, even _if_ the impossible happens and T’Challa decides not to cut my throat on the spot—then what? I can’t just go back into the public now. I’m too dangerous to stay on the outside. I’m still a threat.”

“What, you mean how—“

“All that stuff HYDRA put in me,” he reminds Steve, “It’s _still there_. It never went away. I’m just as much a danger now as I was in the GSG9 base—just one more person has to find me, maybe a year from now, maybe five years, maybe thirty, I don’t care. I’m _not_ letting anyone else kill through me, Steve. D’you hear me?!”

“Then we find a way to break it, Buck. I don’t care how long it takes. I'm staying with you the whole way. We can go through the files from the HYDRA leak—”

“You don’t think I’ve looked? I’d gotten my hands on every HYDRA document I could find back when I was hunting them last year. I know the codes, remember. I know how they operate. But there was nothing in there about curing me. That was never their plan. Hell, it would’ve been completely against their—”

“But you didn’t let that stop you from living your life, Buck. I saw your apartment. I read your notebooks. You didn’t lock yourself down into some secret base then. Why now?”

 _You dumbass._ Bucky feels his own eyes filling. “Steve, you don’t get it. Back in Bucharest, before the GSG9 hit, before Zemo found me—I’d been thinking that maybe, since I was getting my memories back, that—that my brain was re-forming itself, I guess. Was healing itself. So all the other things HYDRA had done to me were disintegrating as well.” He grits his teeth, willing the bile rising in his throat to dissipate. “But we know now that that’s not true. I’m a threat, Steve, a massive one. Don’t try to deny it.”

“But we could still reverse-engineer what they did. If there’s a will, there’s a way. You know what, we just need to find Nat. I know if the two of you—"

“She's too smart to hide with us,” Bucky points out. “And there’s no goddamn way she stuck around, not after what she pulled on T’Challa. Either she’s imprisoned or in hiding, and I think we both know which. A Black Widow in her position would never risk her own safety by hiding out with a sloppier—”

“Then you don’t know Nat.” Steve grins. “Or, not the way she is now. She’d want to find a way to make it work. We’re friends, Buck. You’d be friends with her, too. And I think _you_ know that.”

Steve isn’t completely wrong, Bucky has to admit. But it still doesn’t guarantee that they’d find a cure, and certainly not before someone new finds him, overrides him, makes him kill again. He physically shudders at the thought. _Should’ve let T’Challa take me out when we had the chance—_

But, hell, Bucky doesn’t want to _die_.

He wants to watch more swing videos on YouTube. He wants to eat organic plums and Toblerone bars. He wants to learn all the languages he still doesn't know. He wants—God, he wants to fight with T’Challa again.

He wants to return to that boxing ring, to test his own might against T'Challa's gorgeous array of kicks and lunges. He again wants the rare privilege of bearing witness to that man’s unearthly grace and agility. He wants to find out how a prince, constantly having to navigate the red tape of policy and press, can so easily slip into shadow and become a vigilante hunter, free to prowl to his heart’s content.

Bucky wants to talk to T'Challa. He wants to know what T’Chaka was like. He wants to know who the hell could have raised such a complex, devoted, disciplined son, on top of governing the most advanced nation on the planet.

What Bucky wants is—what he wants just doesn’t exist in nature. Some place so secure, so safe, it’s— _there’s no such thing_ , he laughs inwardly. It’d be a fairy tale of a world. A dream. Heaven on earth.

Bucky can’t go back in time. He'd give anything not to be here, in this present. If he could just—just wind the clock forward, to when someone’s figured HYDRA’s shit out—?

In time Steve sighs and shoots him another quick smile. “Look. Let’s just—just let our plan cook a bit more. We’ve still got a few hours before we land. Let’s think about something else in the meantime.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Like what.”

“Like…” Steve’s smile widens. “Hey, Buck. D’you remember the summer we spent in Vichy? When we had to infiltrate that brothel to recover intel?”

 _Oh, God._ “Kinda,” he lies, unable to keep himself from smiling in return.

The rest of their trip is something close to enjoyable, no matter what nightmares may lurk at their destination. In a way, Bucky has to admit, it’s terribly similar to going back in time.

Besides, he can’t help but think this might be the last day he ever spends with Steve. He sure as hell will make the most of it.

And deep in the very back recesses of his brain, Bucky wonders what became of T’Challa after Natalia had turned on him. Bucky wonders where he is now—how far away he is. How long it’ll be until they’re reunited—until the Black Panther completes his hunt, once and for all.

How, in spite of all rhyme or reason, Bucky goddamn prays that T’Challa is alright.

* * *

**SIBERIA**

_They died in their sleep._

Zemo hadn't come to reawaken them. The  _Soldiers_ , or what's left of them, are only an afterthought, a minute detail. All his nightmares had amounted to but a footnote, in this farce of a story. 

T'Challa can't decide whether to feel relieved or infuriated.

“I, um—I suppose we should inform Ayo. To call off the deployment.” Monica’s voice in his ear quivers with something just shy of nausea. “If they’re—T’Challa, why the _hell_ has Zemo come out here? Why ask about this place, when it holds nothing of value? Nothing makes sense, Majesty. I’m at a loss.”

"Let's see what he says," T'Challa whispers.

Zemo has begun telling the story of SHIELD’s fall, of the Black Widow’s infamous file leak. T’Challa watches the scene unfold from behind the chamber’s reinforced steel door frame. He can see plainly that this man is no fighter; what muscles Zemo may have had in his kill squad days are long gone, his skin sallow and translucent and all but hanging from his narrow frame.

Stark, for his part, had offered his hand in truce to Rogers and Barnes the moment they'd reunited. Whatever squabble had resulted in their words and blows at Leipzig, it’s clearly behind them now, reduced only to Barnes' admittedly justified leer out of the corner of his eye. Stark had donned his Iron Man armor and dropped from his helicopter just outside of the Raft, and T’Challa had debated for most of the following journey whether to announce his own presence right behind him.

 _“And tip him off that we have access to his intranet?”_ Monica had all but reached across the Atlantic and throttled him. _“The hell you are. Just let me keep an eye on his communications. You can always make something up later, once you've both arrived."_

Well, it’s later, now, and T’Challa still has not felt comfortable with revealing himself to the others.

It's primarily because he doesn’t want to spook Barnes. Even he can tell that the _Soldier_ is on edge, glancing about at all turns, muscles coiled, even after the threat of the other _Soldiers_ was lain to rest. He'd look not just toward Stark or Zemo, either, but constantly behind, to Rogers' six, to his own. More than once T'Challa has to duck or sidestep last-second to avoid his rapidly-shifting gaze.

 _Does he suspect that I'm here?_   Something in this notion makes the blood rush to T’Challa’s face, and he bites his lip to keep from smiling in spite of himself.

On a more pragmatic level, T’Challa _really_  doesn’t want to spook Zemo. He will not allow himself to have come this far, to have crossed half the world over, after having pursued an innocent man for days on end—all for the true perpetrator to escape as he irately explains himself.

No. T'Challa has a hunt to complete. He will happily come clean to the three of them, to the entire world, once Zemo is in his clutches. He will let Barnes react as he sees fit, to take his own brutal vengeance should he so choose.  _He deserves as much,_ T'Challa thinks. _I deserve as much_.

But for an instant, T’Challa does let his imagination run away. A hand encircles his throat, those hot stretches of skin cinching tight, coming this close to ending his life, cutting out all air—only to let go in that last, blissful instant. It’s here, in the sweetest of T’Challa’s dreams, that Barnes doesn’t want him dead. He just wants to fight, to vent his frustration and fury through his fists.

This mismatched pair of fists is what encircles T’Challa, holding him, pulling him flush against that thick body—grappling, T’Challa tells himself, they’re wrestling—he’s back in that boxing ring, and they’re fighting, alone together, and Barnes hasn’t stopped himself short for fear of giving himself away. Not this time. This time, they’re going all out, driving into one another with every last dredge of their strength, hiding nothing. They become tangled, a mess of clutching hands, heaving breasts, labored breaths that finally break into satisfied laughter. They compliment one another—complement—gods, he's—

 _No. Not now._ He has absolutely got to focus. _Bast, do not lead me astray._ T'Challa lets himself fall away from that impossible heaven, back down to earth, back to Siberia.

In Siberia, he hears Zemo confess to the Vienna blast.

“Your target has pleaded guilty to the crime,” Monica utters lowly into her mic, if only for the sake of documentation by way of their chat log. “If lethal force must be taken to neutralize the threat, then it is your duty to end his life, so as to deflect any further atrocities from Wakanda and her people.”

“Understood.”  _Bast,_ he pleads, _guide my steps. May my hands be swift, my aim be true, and my vision unclouded._

“Generating an up-to-date floor plan of the base now,” Monica continues. “He had to get into that room somehow. Should have a back-end path traced for you in the next minute, tops.”

“Excellent work. In case it still need be said, I do owe you quite the bar tab, Lynne.”

“With all due respect, your Majesty, you owe me a bit more than that.” _Heh._

“You're Sokovian,” Rogers calls toward Zemo. “Is that what this is about?”

“Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell,” Zemo retorts. “No. I'm here because I made a promise.” In T’Challa’s ear, both Monica and one other person gasp in shock.

Rogers squints, his lips quirking with some sort of grim realization. “You lost someone.”

“I lost everyone,” Zemo replies. “And so will you.”

 _“T’Challa,_ ”Monica hisses.

“Yes?”

“Jan—eh, a friend, she’s been helping me comb the data—Majesty, she just pointed something out to me, in one of Stark’s external email accounts. Not quite an hour ago, he received a priority message containing a video file. No malign coding, not a virus, nothing. The attachment made it through all the firewalls and scrubbers. Just…just the video. T'Challa, it was sent from an email address belonging to the U.N.'s appointed psych evaluator. The one Zemo intercepted.”

T'Challa's heart skips a beat. “Zemo contacted Stark directly? What message does the video contain?”

“We’re watching it now.”

Presently Zemo keeps talking from behind that thick, thick layer of plexiglass. “I've thought about nothing else for over a year," he tells Rogers. "I studied you, I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realized... there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes.” He chuckles. “How nice to find a flaw.”

It’s a needlessly personal insult to make, T’Challa thinks. Melodramatically personal.

This whole situation, it’s—it’s custom-tailored. Laser-targeted. _A vendetta_ —not only against Barnes, but against Rogers as well?

And yet he'd sent something to Stark.  _Something's wrong here._

“T’Challa,” Monica rasps, “it—it’s footage of the _asset_. Of an assassination, time-stamped December sixteen, nineteen-ninety one. He’d have been under HYDRA control at the time, when he’d—” To his surprise, she sounds genuinely shaken, her words coming out in feverish bursts. “It’s—it’s no good. It’s no good, highness.”

“Lynne? What’s happened? Upload the thing to our feed.”

Be he may as well not have asked, for now Zemo directs his three known audience members to an ancient console near the _asset’s_ pod.

Static-riddled footage appears. Footage with the same exact time-stamp as the one Monica had described. The one Zemo had ensured would make its way to Stark, no matter whether he’d been here, present, or on the other side of the planet.

But Stark is here. Because they had tipped him off. All to put the Black Panther on the path to his target.

T’Challa has never felt less powerful in his life as he does now, watching the Winter Soldier strangle Maria Stark to her death.

 _A vendetta…against Stark? Then why bait Barnes out here with the threat of the_ Soldiers…?

“Did you know?” Stark’s words come out altogether too quickly, setting T’Challa’s nerves on edge. That's when it clicks.

T'Challa knows exactly what is about to happen.

“I didn’t know it was him,” Rogers replies, his voice paper-thin.

“Don’t shit me, Rogers, did you _know?!”_

There’s a heartbreaking moment of silence, there, one that seems both impossibly long and still passes too quickly for his brain to truly register. T’Challa has experienced one of these firsthand, just once before. One time too many.

It was that last second in Vienna, after the police and their dogs had begun bolting away from a van parked just outside the U.N. complex. The bellowing of _Get down!_ had stretched and stretched and stretched and burst into nothingness, never wholly to be known.

_A vendetta against all of them. Against these Avengers._

Rogers’ response is a resigned whisper, his voice crumpling beneath the tangible weight of guilt.

“…Yes.”

T’Challa nearly bolts forward as Stark begins attacking Barnes, knocking Rogers out of the way and hurling the full force of his might at the Soldier.

“Zemo’s on the move!” It’s not Monica’s voice, but a different woman’s.

 _No._ Every bone in T'Challa's body wants to intervene in the fight before him, to see that Barnes gets out of there alive.  _Mine_ , T'Challa screams inwardly _, Barnes is_ mine,  _not for you to harm in your infantile fit—_

But the Black Panther’s mission now is the most clear cut one of his life.  _Now_ , he's got to go  _now._

Time slows to a crawl. As electric sparks seem to bite into his skin along crisscrossing paths, T’Challa weighs his two agonizingly disparate options. Stark has quite the array of weapons in that armor of his, but he’s clearly emotionally compromised. Could Rogers and Barnes hold their own long enough to calm the man down, to make him see reason?

_Now—!_

But—leaving Barnes behind—it feels wrong. It feels evil. Like abandoning him. T'Challa has tormented him nonstop, and the first chance he has to make it up to him, to offset even one mite of damage, he's instead forced to leave Barnes to fend for himself?  _Bast,_ he prays _, tell me this is not my path!_

But it's instead T'Challa's own voice that answers.  _He will survive. You know he can._

The fact of the matter is that Barnes is not his charge. He never was. 

All this, it's been one grand mistake after another. His own days-long hunt was a sham, a perfect storm of good intentions nonetheless misfired. James Barnes' soul belongs no more to T'Challa than it does to anyone else. Not even to HYDRA, whose slithering arms had failed to hold him even after so many decades of intermittent mind-control. Barnes belongs to no one and nothing.

T'Challa can have faith in him. The man can fight, he knows. He can outlast seemingly insurmountable odds. He has already.  _Surely_ he and Rogers can take on one rage-blinded man, even one in powered armor.

 _So be it._ He hunts.

“Zemo’s taking a rear stairwell upward.” It’s still this second, unknown woman’s voice in his ears. “Ah, excuse me. Mo—uh, Lynne had to take a breather. I’m Janice, and—yeah. Rear stairwell. Around the corner to your left, looks like there’s a matching one—”

“I’m in.” T’Challa bounds effortlessly from rail to rail, jumping ten, fifteen feet high at a time. Bless B’Tumba for having packed that satchel of the sacred leaf; Bast’s bone-ringing hum is louder than T'Challa has ever felt it. Far stronger than when he’d fought Barnes at the airport, in any case. And this time, there's no burning oil clogging his veins, no tunnel cinching his vision, no thick mask weighing his head down. He feels clean. He feels free.

And still T’Challa reminds himself that being wrong feels terribly, terribly much like being right. It would be a horrific shame to take the life of someone who could just as well turn out to be an impostor of a different sort. He needs not shed any red-black lifeblood upon this snowy ground, not today.

 _You can take down one man,_ T’Challa tells the Panther _. You can suppress one, single, unarmed, unarmored skeleton of a man, without taking his life._

But it is soon to T’Challa’s utter shock that Zemo has not jumped up into the Humvee. He hasn’t even run away on foot. Instead he sits down, right there in the snow. He stares listlessly over the snow-capped mountaintops. He’s silent.

It's so quiet, in fact, that T’Challa can hear the fight going on from however many levels belowground. And it’s not just his increased senses picking up the sounds, for so too can Zemo, who occasionally flinches from the shockwave of a particularly great blast. Their fight is truly that loud. That furious.

It’s been over a minute, now, and they’re still going at it, these Avengers. Stark has not been calmed in the least.

_What have you done…?_

T’Challa removes his helmet. He wants to look upon this self-professed killer with his own eyes. Some meager, childlike thread of his soul wants to knowwhat dire circumstance could possibly drive someone to commit these atrocities. He wants to know, even where understanding may not be found.

"I almost killed the wrong man," he utters toward Zemo's hunched back. These words, they hurt, like his own tongue has plunged into his stomach to tear it open. But it's true, and it's far more Zemo's fault than it will ever have been his own.

To his surprise, Zemo does not leap up in shock. Or get up at all. He does not even turn his head. Instead, Zemo continues facing forward, as though to address the snowy panorama before him.

"Hardly an innocent one," is his curt response, a throwaway line. It lacks conviction, T'Challa thinks, mystified. 

_Does he think me a specter?_

“Is this what you wanted?” T’Challa asks. “To see them rip each other apart?” 

 _This_ _is why you killed him? This is why I'll never see him again…?!_

“My father lived outside the city,” Zemo replies, his voice brittle, “and…I thought we would be safe there. My son was excited. He could see the Iron Man from the car window.” With that last sentence, they can both hear a blast from the same hero’s armor, like a rocket going off too soon. Failure to launch, of the explosive variety.

 _Sokovia_. That day that changed the world, nearly as much as the 2012 Chitauri invasion.

But, T’Challa supposes, to one person? To just the right person, even first contact with a genocidal alien civilization cannot compare to a different breed of horror, levels of magnitude be damned. Pain disregards numbers.

“I told my wife,” Zemo continues, _“’Don't worry. They're fighting in the city. We're miles from harm._ ' And… the dust cleared. And the screaming stopped.” He himself stops here, taking a slow, wet breath. “It took me two days until I found their bodies. My father, still holding my wife and son in his arms…” He shakes his head. “And, the Avengers? They went home!”

 _They do that,_ T’Challa thinks. He thinks of Lagos, of his eleven dead children. The Avengers had not triggered the grenade, he knows. But they’d failed to contain it. They had collapsed a building onto his own people, onto Lagos’ own, and then had gone home, leaving behind both the living and the dead.

“I knew I couldn't kill them,” Zemo laughs joylessly. “More powerful men than me have tried. But… if I could get them to kill each other…”

It would be silent, now, if not for the shouting. For the blasts. For the denting of metal against metal. T’Challa hears Barnes’ voice erupt in a pained scream. It’s not a sound he ever wants to hear again.

 _This was all to tear the Avengers apart._ To rupture the world’s one contingent of self-determined first-responders.  _Enhanced persons_ , that had been the keyword in the Accords.

T’Challa thinks of how, throughout these past few days, those damned Accords had wrought an awfully similar effect to that of Zemo's master plan. How they’d all fought one another at Leipzig, the side approved to fight charged with wrangling those who had wanted only to save the world. Who had wanted only to go where T’Challa stands now, facing down the cause of so very much death and destruction.

The Avengers had failed to contain the IFID Incident, T'Challa has not forgotten. Lives were still lost at their hands, if by an explosive blast rather than biochemical weaponry. The Avengers had not stopped Sokovia.  _Yes,_ Tony Stark had helped engineer it—had created ULTRON, even if out of a pure desire, and a good one. And the Avengers had not saved the hundreds who had died in the New York invasion, in those long hours that had stretched infinitely longer for all those who had watched from afar, including T’Challa himself.

But they had arrived on each scene, T’Challa thinks, his heart growing sore. They had tried to help. Gods, they had _tried_.

While he had remained in Wakanda, content to let Nigerian forces handle the imminent ex-HYDRA personnel's threat to the IFID, the Avengers had shown up to the site in person. While the world had looked on in horror as a rogue AI broke loose, T’Challa had heeded the ministers’ advice: _Stay back. Stay home. Stay out of their mess._ And the Avengers had flown to the sky to contain the threat.

When HYDRA had reared its ugly head, only the Avengers had had the means to stop its genocidal machine in that final hour. It had taken the positioning and prowess of Captain America and the Falcon to destroy the helicarriers, had taken the former director's planning and the Black Widow's infiltration expertise to expose the syndicate's inner workings. Wakanda's people would have been shielded from the kill-sats' meager binary-coded targeting, but—as for the rest of the world? 

And when the alien-god Loki had appeared from the other end of the Tesseract, when he’d killed dozens of people within hours, T’Challa’s own father had placed one hand upon his shoulder. _We will handle him ourselves,_  he had said, _should he broach Wakanda’s borders. Until then, let the outsiders fight the evils on their own soil._ So had the Avengers fought, even as the Chitauri filled the skies, their leviathans blotting out the sun.

The Avengers had indeed gone home afterward, T’Challa knows. But before that, they’d ventured beyond the safety of their own walls. They’d tried to make a difference in the world around them, a good one, one that perhaps no one else could have been prepared to take on.

And now Zemo does tilt his head T’Challa’s way ever so slightly. “I'm sorry about your father," he says, with that same mouth that had confessed to T'Chaka's cruel and senseless murder. "He seemed a good man—with a dutiful son."

 _My father was a good man_ , T’Challa thinks, a hair's breadth from slitting this godforsaken man's throat open where he sits. _Those you’ve set upon one another below our feet, they were good people. Dutiful people, fighting the most dire of evils whenever they saw it appear. Wherever they saw it appear. Their whole team is filled with good, dutiful people, all thrown at one another by forces seeking only to use them for their own agendas._ Like so many blunt objects.

T'Challa's father was not only a good man, but an inspirational one. A man who never stopped learning and growing, no matter how late into life. He had authorized and overseen the eleven medical students' mission to aid a virulent disease outbreak in Lagos. He had gone before the United Nations to announce Wakanda’s return to exchange with the rest of the world. He had meant to help, after seeing so much destruction and despair in the world at large, after witnessing evils too potent and too powerful for ordinary people to handle on their own.

T’Chaka had wanted to at least _try_.

_“Yeeurgh—!”_

It’s Barnes’ voice that breaks into T’Challa’s thoughts again. His shriek follows an appallingly sharp, sheering sort of noise that has no place in match between blunt objects. Something, somewhere has been blasted open, shredded to pieces, torn asunder.

All according to Zemo’s agenda.

“Vengeance has consumed you,” T’Challa intones lowly, suddenly overcome with a cold, bitter ache. “It's consuming them.”

He thinks of the warmth that had left his father’s hand as he’d clutched it for the last time. Thinks of the blood soaking that shirt beneath his cheek as he’d wailed. He thinks of the name on his tongue, the one he’d sworn so oft and so strongly that he would destroy with his own hands.

That mirror is back, cracked into a spider-web shape where T’Challa had thrust his fist into his own reflection. When he’d refused to see Barnes in himself. When he’d denied the truth, in the name of retribution.

Retribution, he cannot help but think, is but a glorified title for rage. Vengeance, only gilded in a veneer of so-called justice.

It’s a rage T’Challa has felt firsthand. A powerful one, nearly impossible to redirect. He’d nearly lost himself in it. He’d nearly sacrificed the wrong person to its wildfire, adding another link to that red, red chain spanning space and time. He’d nearly become the shell of a person he’s staring at now.

Nearly.

“I'm done letting it consume _me_.”

T’Challa looks upon his father’s murderer with his own eyes. Zemo is no demon, no monster, no machine. He’s only a man, one consumed with fury and grief that he’d channeled into a very specific skill set, all in the name of vengeance. He had not even bothered with cloaking his rage in that thin veneer.

“Justice will come soon enough,” T’Challa sighs, sheathing his needle-nosed claws.  _Phasers set to stun,_ as Monica would say—

“Tell that to the dead.” Zemo pulls something from his jacket and holds it to his head. A pistol, of course. 

Before it can go off, the Black Panther is on him.

 _"Argh—"_   Zemo writhes and yelps in T’Challa grip, but to no avail. Seconds pass, and he begins to slip into unconsciousness.

“The living are not done with you yet,” T’Challa growls before Zemo’s eyes fall shut.

The killer falls limply into his arms, but he is not killed. He breathes, and will breathe for a while yet, by T'Challa's will. By Bast's.

 _Threat neutralized._ It's happened. It's done.

For an indeterminable amount of time, T'Challa's ears ring with only the flooding of his pulse.  _Finished._

"Monica," he asks, surprised at the lightness in his own voice, "are you alright?"

"Y-yeah. Yeah, I am. Thanks. And—and good work." She takes a deep breath, and even T'Challa can tell she has wept. "I'm—I'm informing the GSG9 you have him in your custody now—"

 _"Monica._ " T'Challa wants to write her name in the sky. "Your work was impeccable. Take pride in what you've done here today. I could never have dreamed of capturing him in time if you hadn't tracked him down."

"I—thanks. Thank you. And, T'Challa, I—" Are his ears deceiving him, or is Monica still sniffling? "D'you know that I'm so fucking happy you're alright? I'm so glad you didn't die at that damn airport. I'm so happy we finally caught that bastard, after everything I'd—I'm—ugh, listen to me spouting this sappy bullshit—just, fuck all of you— _Jan_ , c'mon—"

T'Challa cannot stifle his own laughter even if he'd wanted to. "I will see you soon to thank you in person. And please extend my thanks to your friend—to Janice." 

Janice is still on a mic, as it turns out. "The pleasure was all mine, highness. I don't think I've seen a lunge that quick in my life! He had no clue what hit him. You're a regular superhero, y'know?"

 _Heh._ "That may well be. But please see that Monica gets ample relaxation. She's worked nonstop, even while I was unconscious this morning."

"Yeah," Monica finally calms down enough to speak, "how dare you get electrocuted and leave me to do all the heavy lif—ack! Jan! Ahaha—"

"Her report's gone through, Majesty. If you need us, then maybe send somebody over to Aviary Day Spa so we can tell them we're unavailable. Janice, over and out."

T'Challa laughs through his nose. "Copy that."

The line goes mute, leaving him alone with the snow, and the silence. It's become quiet, he realizes. Truly quiet.

And so it is now that T’Challa gives thanks to Bast right where he stands, for three reasons.

One, because he has fulfilled his hunt, and not at the expense of the man's life; two, that he is blessed with such incredible comrades—friends—even half a world away; and three, because he can see now who has survived the gruesome fight below.

* * *

Steve’s been drinking.

There’s no war going on, not that he knows of. Not one concerning America, at least.

It’s a chilly Friday evening in 1937, and for not the first time in his ratty excuse of a life, he’s been drinking.

His pal, his buddy, his—Bucky is _sloshed_. He’s thrown one arm over Steve’s shoulders, is leaning so heavily onto him that Steve thinks he might crumble beneath his weight. He’s been drinking, for, eh, maybe an hour, two at most, but Bucky’s had a whole afternoon’s head start. Plus, they both know he can afford better liquor.

It’s 1937, and Steve’s got a WPA job, one that barely covers rent for a cramped third-floor studio in Brooklyn, but he knows he’s lucky. Sure, he’d had to lie about his asthma, his load-bearing capacity, his allergies, and his shit excuse of a stamina, but so far no one’s noticed. He’s been painting post offices and courthouses with murals of big, strong men and women leading the country to glory by way of their big, strong, glorious work.

He’d met Buck at their usual spot only to find out that he'd been given the afternoon off for the holiday. Steve can’t actually tell for the life of him what Bucky’s been happily slurring at the top of his voice for the past hour. Hollering, for all he can remember. His ears are still ringing from all the yelling, and with an odd clanging noise. Maybe they’re leaving the bar this early because he busted up some furniture, threw some fists, got them both booted. Wouldn’t be for the first time, he laughs to himself. Steve’s a fighter. Always has been.

Yeah, he’s definitely been drinking. The ground beneath him is spinning, dancing. Between that and the weight of Bucky over his shoulder, he’s surprised that he himself hasn’t keeled over yet. And he can’t unsee fireworks going off, like those vivid blasts have somehow imprinted themselves onto his eyes. But when the hell had he last seen fireworks? _New Year’s ain’t for a whole 'nother week!_

Still, despite the weight of Bucky atop his shoulders and the fatigue in his own muscles, Steve feels light. Light as air. Heavy though Bucky may be, he’s infinitely lighter than whatever that other thing on his back had been earlier. It varies from day to day with his WPA job; maybe it was a long ladder, this time, or a crate, or a vat of thick primer. The burden of that thing had been unbearable, as though he’d been carrying it for years. It's been a long day, he figures.

Steve’s too drunk to recall accurately, but he vaguely remembers a coat of red and blue paint on the thing, whatever it was. Maybe a star? Eh. It’s gone now. He’d traded the thing away for Bucky. Had left it sitting on the cold, ugly floor, for somebody else to pick up and use come Monday. Maybe somebody bigger and stronger than he is, somebody who wouldn't drop it at the first chance to get drunk with Bucky instead.

It’s a chilly Friday evening, Steve’s drunk, and he’s got Bucky back, at least for the next few days. That’s all he cares about right now. It's the most he could ever ask for, really.

Steve can see snow falling in the distance, just beyond the speakeasy's dim entry hall. Christmas is tomorrow, he remembers. But there's no way he's gonna make it to the midnight mass, not at this rate. While the congregation at Bucky's lavish Episcopal cathedral won't frown at him for taking communion with them, the Pope would definitely not approve. Or so Steve's Ma had always sworn. 

So they'll both go to both masses. Yup, that's the plan for this weekend.

They’ll recover tomorrow morning, and Steve will pull Bucky’s gift out from its hiding place. He’d had to save up for weeks to get them both Coney Island tickets. They’ll have Christmas dinner with Becca, then go to the Saturday night Catholic mass, and he’ll crash at Bucky’s place. They could put the couch cushions on the floor, like when they were kids. The next morning, they’ll go to the Sunday morning Rite One at Bucky’s church. Given the way Steve’s health has been going, he figures he could use all the prayers he can get.

Steve thinks, as he stumbles out of the speakeasy's concrete front entrance, that he might spend Sunday afternoon drawing. Maybe while Bucky reads the sports section aloud to him, that or the financial news. He thinks he'll inevitably wind up sketching Bucky again. Bucky's face has intrigued him since they were kids. There's always some little shape or shadow he can't quite capture, not in lead or ink. One of these days, he'll get it right.

Except—aw, hell, is he sauced. Maybe the worst he’s ever been in his life. _Steve_ knows that Brooklyn’s ain’t got _mountains_. He rubs his head with his free hand, but even then the snow-capped mountaintops don’t dissolve into ad-plastered buildings and rusted fire escapes as they should. _The hell’s going on…?_

It’s with a single gulp of cold, _cold_ air that Steve wakes up.

“Ughn—”

Bucky’s slipping off of him, is shifting his weight onto both feet. Crouching, into a fighting stance, his single arm held defensively in front of him. Steve looks to where Bucky's affixed his wide-eyed gaze. He does a double-take.

_How long’s T’Challa been here?!_

He casts a glance around, gathers his bearings. Siberia, they’re still in Siberia. They’ve shut Tony down. Bucky’s _not_ in fighting shape, and he's not all that better off.

He, he’s winded, he's exhausted, and T’Challa’s got that metal suit on again. T’Challa’s standing up straight—Steve braces himself—the Black Panther is—

T’Challa is carrying Zemo’s unconscious body in his arms. His helmet’s off, and his gleaming black eyes are locked onto Bucky's.  _Huh._

“Did—” Steve glances between him and Bucky. “Were you there for—for when he—?”

“I heard everything.” T’Challa takes a step forward and lifts the body up a bit higher, a bit further out, as though for Bucky to inspect. “Zemo’s confession to my father’s assassination has gone on record.”

For a hot second, Steve’s back in that damn polizei base, and Tony’s on his last nerve. _Whaddya call it, an—an olive branch—_

It takes a second, but something in Bucky visibly changes. Gone is that hunched stance of a back-alley brawler. Gone is that glare he'd only begun to wear after Steve had rescued him from Zola's lab. A warm haze blooms in his features now, one that Steve's not sure he's seen before. There's a word for it, when one season gives way to the next, melting the frost. There's gotta be a word for it, and Steve just doesn't know it, not yet.

Steve suddenly feels the need to hold his breath. Any noise he makes could shatter this quiet springtime, this fragile moment of rebirth. He’s afraid to move. It’s beautiful, somehow, whatever it is. Steve’s been waiting for Bucky to make a face like that for years. Decades, really.

Bucky nods. Grins. Laughs, even, just for a second, as his eyes begin to swim. Then he lists dangerously to the side, until Steve catches him. “Watch out, Buck—”

Steve doesn’t miss that T'Challa had taken a panicked step forward as well, his eyebrows drawn in concern. _Concern—for Bucky—?_

“Stark did this?” T’Challa tears his eyes away from Bucky’s only long enough to glance at the sparking metal stump.

“Y-yeah,” Bucky replies, smiling over his gritted teeth. “That made Steve mad. So Steve shut down his suit.” He closes his eyes. “Shoved that shield right up his—”

“You left him alive.” Wonderment glitters in T’Challa’s eyes. Wonderment, and no small trace of relief. Or maybe Steve's just projecting. He can't quite say.

Steve nods. “We did. Just had to cool him off—” _Wait._ Is he out of his mind, or had Bucky just tried to make a joke—? _We’re both losing it._ “How’d you get here, if you don't mind my asking?”

T’Challa repositions Zemo’s form over his shoulder and into a fireman’s carry, scattering loose clouds of snowflakes about. He practically glows in the late-evening sunlight refracting off the snow-capped mountaintops; Steve can’t help but remember a specific stained glass window from Bucky’s old church, one that had portrayed a shepherd carrying an injured sheep. “Stark flew straight here after learning the coordinates from your man Wilson. I followed him.”

Bucky’s eyes flicker open. “You can fly?”

_“Buck—”_

“Well, yes, I suppose.” For a moment, T’Challa’s eyes seem to flash in amusement, and Steve can’t ignore how Bucky’s entire body shivers against his. _What…?_

Then Steve yelps out loud as a VTOL just larger than the Quinjet descends from the clouds overhead. The blasting gusts from its many engines nearly knock him over where he stands, and are somehow practically silent nonetheless.

“Damn,” Bucky murmurs, but the grin across his face doesn't fade. Steve’s seen that dazzled expression before—when they’d both watched in awe as a beautiful red hot rod had floated up into the air, as if by magic. Just for a few seconds.

After the VTOL lands neatly behind T’Challa, its wide cargo bay door slides open. T’Challa stoops to grab his helmet from the ground and then nods to them. “Shall we?”

Steve can feel Bucky’s pulse jump even through his tactical vest. “You—you want us to come with you?”

T’Challa fastens Zemo into a safety harness and then handcuffs him to the metal braces bolted to the walls. “I assumed you wanted to see this one handed over to the GSG9 in Berlin. Am I wrong?”

Bucky all but lunges forward, and it’s all Steve can do just to help him limp closer toward the VTOL’s bay door. The craft is not _just_ larger than the Quinjet; somehow, the thing looks even bigger on the inside than it does on the outside. Steve guesses that its narrow stairwell leads up to a bridge, but at this point he’ll believe anything.

After all, there's a high chance that Steve's just drunk. It's 1937, Christmas is tomorrow, and a Disney Prince in a shining metal catsuit is offering them a ride in his magic spaceship—

“Berlin—you don’t—you’re not going to extradite him to Wakanda?” Bucky asks. “Not gonna kill him?”

“I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider it,” T’Challa murmurs, folding his arms. His features are smooth, practically unlined, and yet Steve can still pick up a dose of wistfulness in them. “But… I have his confession recorded. There's a chance he could provide us with further intel in the future. Most importantly, Wakanda’s reentry to the world at large need not kick off with the death sentence of an outsider.” T’Challa’s face softens as his gaze meets Bucky’s. Tiny snowflakes glimmer upon his thick eyelashes. If Steve didn't know better, he'd mistake them for tears. “Enough blood has been spilled already, I think.”

How much time passes as these two stare at one another, captivated by one another, Steve can't honestly tell. Maybe he's still imagining things.

But maybe not. “Yeah. Yeah, Berlin sounds good.” Bucky slides firmly back onto his feet again and winces upon impact, but his face splits into a pained grin. “Hey—this way, we can leave the Quinjet for St—for Tony.”

 _What._ Steve blinks a few times to gather his thoughts, but it’s tough. “You really don’t wanna leave him to hotwire the Humvee?”

“Steve. C'mon. The state he’s in now…” Bucky grimaces. “He could freeze to death before getting anywhere with that motor.”

Steve’s jaw drops. “How can you say that when he was trying to kill you a minute ago?”

“Because—” Bucky looks downright wounded here, in more ways than one. “Because I don’t blame him. Not for snapping, after having to watch that. Can you?”

Bucky is _not_ doing this self-punishing thing again, not while Steve's still standing. "Of course I can goddamn blame him, Buck, he threw a tantrum, like a—like a _child_ —a toddler pointing a gun—"

“His parents, Steve. He just saw me kill them in cold blood. He watched me strangle his mom.” Bucky’s voice breaks on that last word. He looks away, instead toward T’Challa. “T’Chal—um—your highness—you understand where I’m coming from. How he must've felt. I know you do.”

T’Challa’s smile is slight, but even Steve is caught off guard by its warmth. Or maybe the cold is just _really_ getting to him. Either way.

“I think I do,” T’Challa replies. “I do not condone, but I understand.” He holds out one hand, offering it to Bucky. Steve watches as the gauntlet unweaves itself and retracts, leaving T’Challa’s hand uncovered. An ornate ring glints from his middle finger. “And I also understand if my apology comes far too late. I have hunted you, unjustly, and refused to listen to you when you protested. I do not condone my own actions from these past few days. But…” He licks his lips, trailing off into a quick nod. “I would like to make them up to you. If you’ll have me.”

Bucky stands transfixed, his jaw slackening for half a second. He looks happy, Steve realizes. Radiantly happy, the gleaming of his eyes outshining even the silvery sky overhead.

Then he snaps his jaw shut and raises one eyebrow. “Well,” Bucky begins, and oh does Steve know that tone, “it’s been three whole minutes and you haven’t kicked my ass yet. So, yeah. Guess I could give you a chance.” He takes T’Challa’s hand. Squeezes it. “Nice to—nice to finally meet you. Your Majesty." He runs his tongue across his reddened lower lip. "T'Challa.”

T’Challa returns the grip in strength, his eyes glittering. “Well met, once again, James.” He blinks. “Bucky.”

If Bucky was smiling earlier, then there’s no word in the universe that describes what he’s doing now. Seconds pass before they both slowly withdraw their hands, as if they’re both reluctant to let go. ... _once again?_  

Still, Steve can't help but sniffle a bit. He's missing Sam with every fiber of his being. Sam would have already scoffed at this little scene a hundred times by now. Probably would've made some unwarranted comment about—eh, no, Steve can't even try. He doesn't have it in him.  _Sam should be here._

Steve's _got_ to bust his boyfriend out of that damn Raft, first chance he gets.

Once they walk aboard together, the bay door smoothly closes behind them, shutting out the bitter cold. Even through his deliria, Steve can tell that T’Challa’s jet is _nice_. The upper chamber—indeed containing the sleekest set of bridge controls that Steve’s ever seen—is somehow even larger than the hold beneath it.

“We should arrive in Berlin within ninety minutes,” T’Challa murmurs after keying a launch sequence into a flat, dark touchscreen. Steve hopes it’s a touchscreen and that he hasn’t begun hallucinating. “I will authorize the handoff of Zemo to the GSG9 chief en route. My security team can facilitate the exchange, should you two not wish to be caught by the police or their surveillance.”

“Th-thanks,” Bucky replies, slumping down onto the passenger bench behind the bridge with a low grunt. “Urgh.”

Steve shoots a glance his way. “Buck, you alright?”

“Mhm. Just, uh. Not sure what—not sure about what’s gonna happen now.”

 _Now that we’ve left the base, and haven’t left you behind._ The immediate future is a total blur, but Steve considers Bucky’s enduring presence a victory in and of itself. With T’Challa vouching for him, Bucky surely has better odds against the authorities now than he’d assumed before.  _There's hope. Somewhere in here._

Steve's having trouble putting his thoughts together at this point, but he does have one major item on his itinerary. “It’s not much in the way of a plan, but we need to get Sam and the others off of that Raft. If I have to break them out myself, then so be it.”

“The prison?” Bucky winces. “Yeah. Yeah, and I wanna help. Hey, uh, your Majesty—feel free to kick us out wherever’s most convenient for you. Just, uh. I’d ask for somewhere maybe not too conspicuous…?”

T’Challa considers him with a gleam in his eye. “I can do more than that. But let me first consult with my advisors. While the Accords were ratified by the U.N., the Raft prison is overseen solely by United States forces. We had found that stipulation to be…curious.”

Steve’s about to fall over from exhaustion, but he wasn’t born yesterday. “You’ll take us there, _if_   we can get you intel on its security measures.”

T’Challa gives him a dazzling smile. “I'm sure we can work out a reasonable transaction, Captain. But let's wait to discuss until Zemo is in GSG9 custody. In the meantime, you two need to let your wounds heal up. There’s a first-aid kit in that compartment, should you need it.” He blinks. “Should you want it. I imagine the serum has already done most of the work.”

Bucky laughs, then hisses sharply. “Sounds like a plan.”

Nodding, T’Challa leaves the pilot chair to face a heavy-duty locker. Steve watches, unable to keep his jaw from slackening, as T’Challa’s armor unravels itself into individual components, revealing a skintight undersuit beneath that joltingly reminds him of Tony’s.

 _Tony_. God, does Steve hope that asshole can at least get to the damn Quinjet okay. As more time passes, even he can feel his own rage and disappointment give way to something else. It feels unclean, feels toxic, like it shouldn’t be inside him. Feels wrong.

He’d done wrong by someone who’d maybe deserved better, just maybe. Right up until that bitter end.

 _I should’ve told you earlier. When you had space, when you had time. When Buck wasn’t standing right in front of you. Should’ve_ —God, if he could just _talk_ to Tony—could just send him one message—could apologize—

"And I don't suppose either of you have slept recently." T'Challa locks each piece of his armor into the sturdy case before pulling on that fanged necklace he'd worn back at the base.

“Got a few hours in back in Bucharest,” Bucky chuckles. _Could've fooled me._ “But that punk over there’s been awake for a solid week. Yeah, the serum makes you tough, pal, but not—”

“Can it, jerk.” But Steve can tell his own protest has evaporated into mist.

He can’t push the memory of Tony’s enraged, distraught face from his mind’s eye. Not yet. He thinks it may take the rest of his life to cease how his heart’s aching now. The rest of his life might not be enough. That’s a horror even Steve can’t bear to stomach right now.

So, he shoves it.

 _This doesn’t have to be the end_ , Steve tells himself instead. _Not as long as we’re both still kicking._

More than anything, Steve does think he could use a quiet place. Somewhere to mull things over. He’d prefer a stint in the float tank back at Avengers HQ, but right now he’ll happily settle for the next best thing. 

“Tell you what,” he concedes, “you two stay up here and touch base. I’ll go keep watch over Zemo. Just in case he tries anything.”

After seating himself back at the bridge, T’Challa gives a low chuckle. “He can try.”

It had indeed been a long day, Steve can admit to himself as he descends to the cargo bay. Steve belts himself into a safety pod on the wall opposite Zemo’s. He's still out cold, both of his hands still tightly cuffed to the metal braces.

Maybe it’s because Steve’s head is beyond swimming at this point, or because this whole situation is the most surreal he’s ever been in, or something else entirely. But before he knows it, the gentle humming of the VTOL’s many engines lulls him to sleep.

It’s 1937, Christmas is tomorrow, and Steve’s been drinking...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all!! Over 1000 hits and the fic isn't anywhere near complete yet! Glad you are enjoying it and thank you so much for all your sweet comments!!  
> And thanks again to Tumblr user spacecomrades for transcribing a CACW scene for me!! Your present is currently a work in progress ;D  
> Make no mistake, next chapter is gonna be a party


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, y'all! Real life and this chapter teamed up to kick my ass. But the good news is I do have the rest of this fic outlined now, so the rest of it should come out a lot more quickly.  
> Certain word choice is based on John Hamu Habwe’s notes in _Politeness Phenomena: A Case of Kiswahili Honorifics_ , 2010. I have absolutely zero intention of “inventing” a contrived Wakandan language (eek), hence the translation handwave in this chapter. I do assume that one would nonetheless contain some Swahili elements, given its location (as mentioned in the first chapter) and that, in this fic’s universe, its people did not begin developing their isolationist policies until pressed to do so circa mid-seventeenth century.  
> Hope y’all enjoy :)

 

* * *

**NEW ORLEANS**

Darlene rocks away.

Much to her own surprise, she has remarkably few complaints; two well-mannered young men have seen to just about her every want in the day she’s stayed on Esplanade. Well, at least the two that she’s seen outside of their rooms, including her new friend Blade. Her room is on the first floor, which is just as well as she doesn’t even have to climb any damn stairs. It’s perfectly sized for her, with an oaken armoire, a coffeemaker, and a tiny ensuite with safety rails. That morning, the one named Joseph had knocked asking if she’d wanted fresh sheets and today’s issue of the _Times-Picayune_.

Her door sits on the opposite side of the ancient kitchen from the staircase vestibule leading to the front room, an airy den with a plugged fireplace and ornate tin ceiling. Upstairs, she’s pretty sure, are the bedrooms belonging to Blade and Joseph, and the master suite. A third man lives there.

Darlene’s heard his voice at least twice. It’s boomed and it’s whispered, and he somehow reminds her of one of her favorite movie stars—but she’s not seen the man yet, not to her knowledge. She nonetheless has a hunch that that one’s Nick.

 _It was thanks to Nick and Joseph that HYDRA can’t shoot any of us from orbit_ , Sam had said. _Nick was the first to realize that Insight and SHIELD were compromised. He coded the retargeting chips to take down the helicarriers, and Joe kept him alive long enough to pass them to us._

Sweet Lord, does Darlene miss her baby. Hopefully one of the two she’s met can soon give her information about where her son’s run off to, or what he’s trying to do, or who she’s hiding from. She’ll take anything she can get, at this rate.

But if Darlene’s intuition is on point, then Nick, Joseph and Blade run some kind of operation delving far beyond that of a bed-and-breakfast for the Avengers’ mothers. Joseph is up and down the creaking stairs nonstop, running errands and hosting brief visitations. His guests would huddle together and speak with low, murmuring voices, comparing notes on their phones. After staying out all night, Blade had reentered the house at sunrise and hasn’t left his room since.

As for Nick, Darlene can scarcely tell whether he sleeps at all. Judging by his footfalls, he’s been pacing in circles and turning in place when not rolling about in a desk chair. Between multiple workstations, she hazards. The master suite is really the control room of this place.

But Darlene’s favorite room here isn’t a room. Rather, it’s the narrow front porch, where she’s parked herself in a wicker rocking chair for the afternoon.

The day is a warm one, and for the first time in recent memory Darlene feels comfortable without having to wear two sweaters. Wind chimes hanging from the porch’s blue-painted ceiling plume the air with soothing metallic tolls. Enormous foxgloves and a dense willow tree effectively block her view of the street beyond the high iron fence, but she’s met with quite a lively sight nonetheless.

Every cat in the neighborhood has come through to fight over the scraps of bacon Darlene had saved from Joseph’s hearty brunch. They do look awfully cute, the eight or nine of the little things, their fur lit up in dancing clumps of what sunlight can filter through the willow’s many branches. In her favorite satin caftan and freshly-washed hair and the pair of jeweled sandals Sam had given her for Easter, Darlene feels like a queen. Queen of the cats. Watching their antics nearly takes her mind off of worrying.

And in time, the cats aren’t her only visitors. _“Bonju,_ ma.”

“Afternoon, baby. Who’re you, now?” She’s seen this man a few times already but hadn’t had the opportunity to inquire yet. He had popped in and out, once dropping off an unmarked envelope, sometimes whispering to Joseph through the iron bars of the fence, but never laying a hand on the intricately-wrought front gate. Not until now.

“The name is Jericho, mama. Seventh ward, born ‘n raised. Enjoying your stay?” Jericho wears a white waistcoat cinched by a thick red stole, its swooshing folds nearly reaching the frayed hems of his gray jeans. His smile is a slight one that matches the softness of his timbre. An old soul, Darlene thinks, no matter his decidedly hipster dress. _Are those hemp sandals?_

...Hipster, or hippie? Now that he's standing still long enough for Darlene to look him over, Mister Jericho’s age is awfully tough for her to place. The lines of his face are long and deep, yet he stands tall, with well-defined musculature. His closely-cropped hair is jet black save for a silvery patch kissing his forehead.

 _Wait._ Are Darlene’s eyes deceiving her, or is his serpentine sleeve tattoo moving? No, surely her vision’s about ready to go out, in her age. That’s all. It’s a trick of this dappled sunlight, the way the snake seems to slither in place along his bicep. It’s the heat of the day. That’s all, that’s all.

“Well enough, baby. Something you need?” Darlene maintains her slow rocking even as the cats shimmy through the fence bars. They swarm around Jericho’s feet to rub their heads against his ankles.  _Hemp, or catnip...?_

“Here to pick up Blade,” is his mournful reply. “Got a long night ahead of us.”

 _Of course someone in that getup is a friend of Blade’s_ , Darlene laughs to herself. But if Jericho’s anything like his friend, she supposes, then he’s a decent fellow. And, for what it’s worth, the cats all seem to like him.

“Blade!” Darlene hollers in the same voice she’d used with her boys in years past. “You got a friend asking for you.”

Jericho chuckles, then reaches down to scratch one cat behind its notched ears. It purrs so loudly that Darlene can— _hold up_.

Her jaw drops as the snake tattoo on Jericho’s arm moves again—the slightest darting of its forked tongue, out and back in again in the blink of an eye. Tasting the air? Smelling her shock?

 _Am I out of my mind_ —?

“Ready to roll.” The screen door flies open and out strides Blade, the handle of his katana gleaming in bursts of thinly-filtered sunbeams. The wraparound sunglasses are on. “Be back later, Darlene. Joe’s home for the evening if you need anything.”

Darlene composes herself. _Trick of the light. Trick of the light_. A strong cup of coffee is in order, oh yes.

“You boys take care,” she just manages to call as they duck into Blade’s Charger. How exactly Jericho had arrived here, if not by his own vehicle, she can't yet muster the energy to wonder. The cats become a yowling chorus as the car takes off, and a few of the younger ones bound behind it until it turns the corner with a squeal.

Perhaps it’s the heat getting to her. Yes, surely just that. Darlene sighs, then slowly moves back onto her feet and reaches for her cane. There’s noise coming from the television inside; she can at least wonder, as she turns the front door’s brass knob, whether Joseph has turned on the evening news. Even if the updates are horrific, they’ll at least be _something_. 

She says a quick prayer before walking back into the den. It turns out that Joseph has indeed turned the television on, and he’s not alone. 

A man she’s never seen before sits next to him on the antique sofa. “Afternoon, Mrs. Wilson. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Darlene blinks a few times to clear her head and then seats herself in one of the high-backed armchairs. “Afternoon. It’s Nick, isn’t it?”

Nick gives a curt nod. He’s in all black except for a hand-knitted gray cardigan, and one of the lenses of his eyeglasses is tinted so as to completely obscure his left eye. His mouth is a grim line. “First things first—your son is alive. There’s been an incident with the Avengers at an airport in Germany, but there were no casualties.”

“Oh, thank heaven,” Darlene breathes, laying on hand over her pounding heart. _That’s all I need to hear, good Lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you._

Joseph scrolls through Twitter on his phone. Darlene’s pretty sure it’s Twitter. Sam had frequently offered to create her an account for _dispensing her sage advice_. "Don't thank us just yet. We're not out of the woods, not by far."

“The Avengers have broken into two fighting factions,” Nick adds. “Your son, along with four others, refused to sign a set of U.N.-governed oversight documents, the _Sokovia Accords_. The story is that, yesterday, they attempted hijacking of a jet in Leipzig.” Darlene appreciates the heavy skepticism in his tone here. _Sokovia Accords?_   “They were joined by the former prime suspect in Monday’s U.N. bombing.”

“Attempted hijacking? What’s happened to Sam? Where is he now?” Even if SHIELD had long fallen, Darlene suspects that its former director is hardly the type to feign his death only to sit on his ass all day. _People like us don’t just retire, no ma’am._

“He and three other Avengers are being held a United States-operated facility in the North Atlantic,” Nick steadily answers, confirming Darlene’s immediate suspicions. “We’ve been digging around the clock to get eyes on him. The place was designed to hold enhanced persons such as Bruce Banner, not physiotypical men such as your son.”

“So he’s in prison.” Darlene’s heart plummets just as quickly as it had soared from the initial news. “Will he get an attorney? What sort of legal representation do the Avengers have?”

“He’ll eventually be appointed one, according to the stipulations of the Accords.” Nick’s begun scowling. “What’s concerned us is the amount of leeway the U.N. has given to the place’s current warden. He’s a Secretary of State of whom I’m not especially fond. The better news is that, at this moment, we have a few programs compiling that should soon give us eyes inside the place.”

“Even now,” Joseph adds, “more details are dropping that may help Sam’s case. The Avengers’ fight at that airport seems to have been fueled by something aside from their disagreement over the Accords.”

“And just yesterday you were warning me not to do what you’re doing now,” Nick chides to Joseph, who waves him off. “Doctors,” he then mutters to Darlene with an eye-roll.

Darlene’s eyes flicker to the television where a _BREAKING NEWS_ bar has begun scrolling. She had watched in horror along with the rest of the world as footage of the smoking U.N. complex had run nonstop. Now, that same attacker’s name reads right behind the word _FRAMED._ It’s a name she recognizes.

“Sam was with that man—with Barnes? Did he run away to help prove his innocence? If I know Sam, he’d only take a jet because he figured doing so would help people.” He had given her the full story of how exactly they’d obtained his wingpack from Fort Meade, after all. The government had been happy to drop the theft charges against him once it became clear that he’d used those wings to save the damn world. Now Darlene wonders just how much of a role Nick or Joseph may have played in that legal finagling.

But Darlene hadn’t raised her boy to be a thief. _Sam is as good as good gets._ That much she’ll happily holler in this Secretary of State’s face, her cane raised high, should the fool think to force her to testify against her own son in court. Those raggedy-asses will rue the day they’d thought to mess with Darlene and her baby, oh yes—

“We’re firmly in that camp as well, Darlene. Make no mistake.” Nick rubs his hands together as though to warm himself. “Captain America himself took the jet in question, along with James Barnes, whose role in the U.N. bombing is now effectively null. We’ve come to understand that your son has spent the better part of two years trying to track Barnes down.”

“Yes, that’s right. Sam could know about how or why he was framed. Is this because you think he’ll make a plea deal? Bargain for a decreased sentence with his intel?” Her mind’s already jumping to three months ahead, to three years ahead, where her baby is stuck in some godawful monster jail an ocean away, and she—she—

“I won’t claim to know his mind,” Nick slowly replies, his one visible eye closing. “We’re operating largely in the dark here. And I don’t suppose he filled you in on much of his operations last year. He was smart if he didn’t.”

Last year had been a trip. Whenever Sam wasn’t abroad on his top-secret missions, he had visited her, and had often brought Captain Rogers along to Sunday dinner. A wonderfully-behaved young man, America’s first Avenger. More importantly, Darlene had never ever seen Sam smile the way he had while the two exchanged repartee and squeezed hands. And not so frequently, either. Not in years.

He hadn’t smiled that much since before his second tour, she’d realized with an aching heart.

Now Darlene sighs. “Not about Barnes. Not even that much about Sokovia. I imagine he wanted to protect me from any blowback.” She makes a face. “Oh, I know how it works; all of my kids served, some in highly classified ops. But now they’ve really imprisoned him without scheduling a court martial?!”

“The Secretary of State I mentioned—Thaddeus Ross—tasked the Avengers authorized for deployment with apprehending Sam, along with Barnes and Rogers. Earlier, Berlin police had captured Barnes for interrogation regarding the U.N. blast, and Barnes somehow managed to break out of his cell midway through the interrogation.” Nick wrinkles his nose. “Your son—and Rogers—had supposedly aided him in escaping the building, though even that’s now up in the air. Something about Rogers keeping Barnes’ helicopter from lifting off—”

“But Sam didn’t make it out of Leipzig with them.” There’s some small part of Darlene, deep down, that wishes the other two hadn’t made it out without her son, that they’d failed precisely because they’d left him behind. It’s warring with another small, deep-down part of her that curses Ross for even thinking to apprehend him after all that. _He’s innocent, I don’t care what you think._

Both of these are dwarfed, however, by the all-encompassing wave of _Wish he’d never met Captain America_. _Wish he’d never heard of Barnes. Wish he were home now. Wish we both were._

It’s a horrendously selfish wish, Darlene knows; if Sam hadn’t met Steve, if the two hadn’t clicked at first sight, then they’d all be living under HYDRA’s iron-fisted rule right now. No doubt that awful algorithm of theirs would’ve targeted him, and maybe her as well. It’s selfish, and unreasonable, and it’s undeniably where she’s at, spiritually.

“I want to speak with him.” Her words feel like dancing flames, each too hot for her tongue to hold. She spits each one into the air expecting them to burn this drafty room down. “How do I do that?”

“It’s not impossible.” Nick’s eye is open again and seems to pierce right through her. Something in him burns; Darlene can practically smell the smoke and the char. Thirty years earlier she’d have tried to huddle closer to the warmth of that bonfire, and the thought does cross her mind even now. “But an in-person visit may not be our smartest move. We believe Ross may attempt to use unorthodox methods to get Sam to divulge where Barnes and Rogers went. If your son decides to protect them, he may not be as forthcoming as Ross would prefer, and we promised not to endanger you. Not even to get to him.”

What Ross _prefers_ can kindly go throttle itself, Darlene thinks. “Then how can I get clearance to call him? What department oversees the Avengers? I thought they were a private group.”

“That’s all been diced up,” Nick scowls, “thanks to this _Accords_ nonsense. It was a question of oversight and transparency, since they no longer answer to SHIELD.” Little to her surprise, his voice does falter on that last word. _Can’t go back now, baby,_ she wants to remind him. None of them can. _Only forward from here._ “They should be in the care of the U.N. right now, given the majority of the language in the _Accords_. That alone might solidify our case against Ross.”

“So you do want to take Ross to court. Good.” Darlene begins brainstorming. She has her own set of tools that’s proven useful in this day and age. There are phone numbers she’s known better than to forget, numbers and names and favors.

“We’re hashing out the different scenarios now,” Joseph replies, glancing up from his phone. “What evidence the Berlin police have found in Barnes’ favor will likely direct the tone for your son’s defense.”

Nick nods. “We do have friends working in tandem with the other captured Avengers’ families as well. On our end, we’ll keep looking for inconsistencies in the Accords that could invalidate his internment. I personally promised Sam to protect you from Ross’s agents. I do want to tell you more, but, again—for your safety—”

 _Ross’s agents._ Darlene inhales sharply. “That’s who I’m hiding out from? The Secretary of State?! Good _night_.”

“It’s a damn mess,” Nick shakes his head. “But your son made a good call. We should soon have enough resources in place to deliver a message untraceably. I recognize that it’s not much, but we will have a clearer picture of the situation in two days, tops.”

 _A message._ Better than nothing. “Then tell Sam that I love him. That I believe he did what he thought was right.” Darlene takes a slow, shuddering breath. “They lay a finger on him, and I _will_ bring a shitstorm right to their front door.” Just like that, she’s a teenager again, staring down pigs and dogs with a message held high instead of a cane. “I’ve lived in D.C. for fifty years, Nick. I’ve helped found lobbying groups still operating today, and I know just about all of their contact information by heart. The minute you find out what charges they’ve brought against him, you let me know.”

Fury’s grin now is an infectious one. Darlene imagines that trace of rage in the curl of his lips all but matches hers. “Just a couple more days, Darlene. That’s all I’m asking. We do appreciate how patient you’ve been with us so far. Abandoning your whole life with no notice—” Here his smile softens. “I know a little bit of what that’s like.”

“And now we know who broke Barnes out of his cell,” Joseph announces, holding his phone up for Nick to read. “Wasn’t Rogers or Wilson. Associated Press just cited a Berlin polizei report—”

Darlene’s nowhere near Nick but she can still sense the jolt running through him. He hops to his feet. “Back to work. We’ll chat again soon, Darlene. I have no intention of letting Ross keep a good man like your son out of action. The world needs him more than it knows.” And before she knows it, Nick’s gone up the stairs and out of sight.

 _Twenty-four hours._ Darlene leans back in her seat and takes a deep breath. “Joseph. I don’t suppose you have any experience with creating a Twitter account on a Cricket phone, do you? One that wouldn’t track my location?”

Joseph looks up from his feed and grins. “There’s a first time for everything, Darlene. Do you have a specific handle in mind?”

“I need to dig the thing out of my purse.” Darlene rocks onto her feet and beckons him to follow her into the kitchen. “But tell me exactly what a _handle_ is, now, and I’ll put on some coffee."

"Sounds good. I think we may have some decaf left in the back of the pantry, unless you prefer—"

Darlene snorts. "I'm sticking to the breakfast blend. Fair warning, baby—I make mine strong." _Lord knows we're gonna need every drop._

* * *

**RUSSIA**

Bucky’s pulled out a knife.

He twirls it in dizzying arcs and loops and figures-eight, the motions more automatic than deliberate, as far as T’Challa can tell. The weapon dances erratically between his fingers and somersaults through the air, threatening to fling loose at all points, yet it somehow never touches the ground.

T’Challa knows not to visibly bristle at the sight of the thing. Luckily he has at least that much control over himself. Beyond that, Bucky looks terrible, continually listing from side to side as the blood drains from his face, long after T’Challa had assumed he’d run dry. He looks ghastly—in no shape to fight. Which, T’Challa thinks, is just as well.

“The jet is on autopilot,” T’Challa finds himself saying aloud. He’s thinking perhaps too many steps ahead, but at this point he can’t stop. It’s how he’s always worked, analyzing every conceivable scenario ahead of schedule and weighing each in turn. “But my security team awaits our arrival. It could look suspicious to call them off now.” There’s no point in having spared Bucky, in letting him take his revenge as he sees fit, if the Dora Milaje will enact their own at the sight of his—

“What?” Bucky squints at him, his grip on the knife loosening. It’s a Gerber, Mk II, T’Challa is almost positive. Tactical standard issue. A solid choice for any arsenal. He can practically feel the thing’s bite even now. “You—” And Bucky’s graying lips gape in bewilderment as he catches on. “You think this’s for you?”

Somehow, T’Challa feels stung. _Of course I do. It’s well within reason._ “Is it not?” _Why have it out otherwise—?_

“It's really not.” And Bucky jams the knife into his left deltoid.

 _“Barnes—_ ” T’Challa’s panic is embarrassingly immediate, even when he fully well knows that it’s merely machinery in there, just the wires and chips and cogs—no matter the agonized face Bucky had made when he’d—is making—is—

“Bucky,” Bucky half-laughs, and T’Challa can detect that it’s an attempt to hide the quivering of his voice. “My name’s Bucky. Please. And I—I know what I’m doing. Or, uh, what I wanna do. Kinda remember how the techs were able to pry the thing off. To make repairs. It’ll set the pain receptors on n-neutral.”

 _Pain receptors_. “Are they not on neutral now?” T’Challa asks, hating with every fiber of his being that he has to ask at all. Hating even more what the answer can only be.

“N-no.” Bucky’s begun wedging the knife in different directions, grunting in the base of his throat each time. “Kinda feels—‘t’s like the first time this—that this happened.”

Nausea hits T’Challa like a tidal wave, nearly knocking him from the pilot chair and to the spinning floor beneath. “It hasn’t powered down? You can feel where the arm is torn off?!” He needs not ask, but the questions blurt from his mouth regardless. The scope of HYDRA’s brutality has caught him off guard yet again.

T’Challa can only hope that at no point does he become so calloused as to take such cruelty in stride.

Bucky’s mouth draws into a thin line and he gives a noncommittal grunt. “Was trying not to freak Steve out. Been acting like my mom all day. Nearly got himself killed for me, again. Think—I think being around me makes him stupid.” He huffs. “But there’s a latch, somewhere in here. Just gotta hit it at the right angle. Shouldn’t take too much—too much longer. Don't mean to distract you.”

 _A latch?_   T’Challa presses one finger to his keybead and hits the decoded HYDRA files he’d gone over with S’Yan only days before. In seconds he finds what he needs. “Barnes—Bucky. Look.” He flings a schematic onto one of the quieter wall-mounted monitors and toggles the screen’s visibility to _universal_.

Bucky’s eyes widen. “Wuh—oh. That’s my arm.”

“Yes.” T’Challa zooms into the inner workings within the deltoid. There’s a lot in there, many different decades’ worth of hardware jumbled into one eclectic system. Its binary-coded _neuro-net_ is crude compared to the processing power of Wakandan tactile-tech, but it does outperform unmodified organic sensing _. Heat, cold, pressure, pain._ The basics are covered, and to the extreme.

T’Challa understands all of this, of course. To have its proven level of functionality, Bucky’s arm would need to be far more sensitive than the average human’s, and the system would have to connect in multiple junctions to his spinal cord. Of course the thing would have to relay pain to his head. Pain is an indicator, after all, the most vital of signals. His system is a structurally sound one, T’Challa laments.

For here, in front of his eyes, inside a living person who hadn’t consented to its installation—in contorting flesh and pulsing blood, delivering a steady stream of trauma to Bucky’s head—it’s wrong. It’s all wrong. _It’s no good—_

“I mean—” Bucky pulls another fake laugh. “Makes sense. S’what I’d do if I knew I had to—to bring me in— _ich_ —” The knife finally falls to the floor with a clatter.

 _Latch, latch, latch, latch—_ “There.” T’Challa highlights the mechanism onscreen. “The junction is further up your shoulder, beneath your vest. That knife won’t hit it at the correct angle, but a thin C-shaped rod could do it.” He kneels to pull a toolkit out from its compartment behind the pilot chair.

“Yeah? Thanks.” Bucky closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’ll give it back when I’m done, promise. Still can’t goddamn believe you thought I was gonna pull a knife on you, after—”

“I wouldn’t have blamed you.” T’Challa pointedly fixes his eyesight onto the kit, to where he unbolts the curved rod. “Have I not hunted you unjustly? Tormented you for days on end? I can only assume the sight of me repulses you.” Why on earth are his hands shaking so? “But know that I would now take your knife to my heart without protest. It’s the least I can do.” He holds out the rod while glancing back at the schematic. He’s got to look at the schematic. He cannot look at Bucky right now. He _cannot_.

To think that T’Challa had not noticed until just now how Bucky had clearly been suffering—too absorbed in the anticlimactic ending of his own tragedy? _Rogers isn’t the only one who grows stupid around you, soldier—_

“Well, you’re wrong.” Now a series of low thuds rings from the floor, as though a handful of metallic objects have fallen from Bucky’s vest. Not a far-fetched notion. “You did the best you could with—with what information you had at the time. Even if I could, I’m not gonna hold that against— _yeow_ —a-against you—Majesty. You’re seriously the last person I feel like stabbing right now. I mean it.” He exhales sharply. "And you're not repulsive. At all."

That Bucky has spent no effort to conceal the shaking in his voice, his tone low with a burden only so heavy as truth—this is what confounds T'Challa. Bucky’s acceptance of his truce somehow had not come strung with the latent bitterness to which he’s unquestionably entitled. It’s unreal, and incomprehensible. It's fantastic.

T’Challa relishes in it, in this, the lushest of dreamscapes, until he realizes Bucky hasn’t yet taken the tool from his hand. “Here. And—it’s T’Challa, to you.” He has no issue with the formality, but hearing his own name on Bucky’s tongue those scant minutes before had stirred something in him, a gateway pleasure with a built-in addiction. How he’d fully pronounced each consonant, not softening them the way the Romanoff had. The shapes his lips had made. The swift flicking of his tongue. _What is happening to me…?_

“Hm? Oh—h-hang on—”

T’Challa finally musters the strength to glance back toward Bucky, only to realize with a pang that he’s holding the tool just outside of Bucky’s reach. He steps over to the bench and holds the rod closer, but right as Bucky places his frigid hand atop his, T’Challa does a double-take at the schematic—to the one important detail his eyes had skimmed over as he’d brooded and dreamt.

“But—you may not be able to reach it yourself. There is a—” T’Challa’s voice hitches in his throat as he realizes exactly what he has to convey. “There’s a tripwire wrapped around it. When touched, it’s rigged to flood your nerves with false stimuli.” _Agonizing pain_ — _corporal punishment._ Gods, T’Challa could retch. He lowers his hand, his grip tightening around the curved rod as Bucky’s slowly retracts. They both know what needs to happen.

With an exasperated sigh, Bucky finishes unfastening his tactical vest. Another knife clatters to the floor along with the others. “I mean, should’ve—should’ve known. It was their property. Didn’t want me taking it off, or—or leaving it somewhere, or—”

 _It wasn’t your limb to use_. “Had I only known when you were planning your hits last year,” T’Challa mutters under his breath. “I would have liked to claw their throats open myself.”

“Early bird gets the worm,” Bucky chuckles after shrugging free from the vest. Underneath, a knife harness and skintight undershirt still cover his shoulder joint. His gives a joyless smile as he unbuckles the harness. “Sorry, think it’s an American expression, or Brit—”

“The first to the site leaves with the goods, yes, I’m aware,” T’Challa rattles off before immediately regretting it. _Not the point._ Bucky hisses through his teeth as the armhole of his shirt catches the loose wires protruding from the arm’s stump. “No. Quit that.” T’Challa reaches for one of the dropped knives. That the single most basic of first-aid rules had not been given a place in the _asset’s_ training— “Hold still.”

“Wuh—” Bucky tenses as T’Challa lifts the hem of his shirt and deftly reaches underneath with the blade. The heel of T’Challa’s hand lathes against his drenched skin. _“Oh.”_

An instant later T’Challa cuts a clean, smooth line through the thin fabric, using his free hand to anchor the sleeve in place. “There.” He gently peels the tattered shirt away from the scarred-over joint of Bucky’s arm and tries his very best not to stare at the sight beneath.

“Thanks,” Bucky murmurs, running his tongue across his lower lip. His shivering doesn’t stop, likely from the sudden influx of cool air against the damp skin of his torso. It’s at least one small blessing that most of Bucky’s wounds have begun closing up, now a litany of mauve-green bruising. The snowflakes in his hair have long since melted and now trickle down his neck and heaving chest in glinting trails.

T’Challa closes his eyes and swallows. _Focus_.

But Bucky had caught him looking at the jagged stretches of ill-faded scar tissue coating the junction of his shoulder and prosthesis. That grim smile remains frozen in place as the crow’s feet around his eyes deepen. “Only lost my forearm from the f—the fall. Think they had to saw the rest of it off. Injected some—something to keep the skin from regenerating. From the—you know. Serum.” Bucky wrinkles his nose. “How bad do I look?”

In another situation, in another life, T’Challa would answer this question directly. He has his own blemishes, after all, and has seen far worse than this level of scarring regardless. Hell, three of Wakanda’s founding peoples had long engaged in scarification of the decorative variety, their societal implications having merited whole university courses each. But because it is a HYDRA product, and by virtue of the pain it had caused Bucky, the mass of scar tissue is an undeniably horrendous sight in T’Challa’s eyes.

Still, it’s not Bucky who is horrendous. T’Challa has no desire whatsoever to reinforce any association the man may have formed between himself and that damn arm, between himself and the works of his captors. After all, is their goal here not to separate the two?

“You could reach the seam,” he instead replies, double-checking the schematic, “but there’s still the matter of fitting the rod in at the correct angle.” T’Challa hates how much easier this would undoubtedly be if Bucky were bolted down. He wants to burn the notion out of his own head with a blowtorch, wants to stamp it into dust underfoot. “I would have a better shot. But you’ll need to lean back, so not here. Get in the pilot seat.”

“Al-alright. Okay.” Bucky sucks in a breath and makes to stand. In no time, he begins listing again, but T’Challa catches him with ease, pulling his flesh arm over his own shoulders. _“Sh_ —sorry—”

“Easy. Here.” One step at a time, they cross the bridge and T’Challa positions him in the chair. By now Bucky’s hand is trembling violently, the tremors in turn rocking the rest of him. “Do what you can to hold still.” T’Challa flings the schematic onto one of the bridge control screens for a closer view.

“Hey." Bucky's eyes have narrowed. "You’re really alright with doing this? Because I could still try, uh, on my own. You really don't have to, if you don't want.”

After lowering the chair’s backrest, T’Challa tilts Bucky’s head up until their eyes meet. Bucky’s have already begin to cloud. _Not good._ “Let's just say I have slightly more faith in my precision and reflexes right now than in yours." He cups Bucky's cheek with his free hand. ”Do you not trust me?"

Bucky nods, his face tilting further into T'Challa's palm. He feels dreadfully cool to T'Challa's touch. “I trust you." He splits into a pained grin. "'S gotta beat me stabbing you in the heart, at least.”

 _On that, you and I can agree._ "Heh."

Unfortunately, it proves to be slow, finicky work, with Bucky hissing every few seconds when not bodily twitching, the bursts of his breath growing shallower with time. The thing is not a latch so much as a lock, T’Challa realizes as he glances more frequently at the schematic, one designed for a specific key rather than his blunt tool. It has six tumblers, and he’s only made it to the second one so far.

However many minutes fade into ethyr as he works, T’Challa cannot tell. Bucky’s shivering breaks into straight-up writhing at points, and the rock-solid tension of his muscles increases steadily beneath T’Challa’s left hand. T’Challa has to shift his own position with each subsequent lock tumbler, slowly circling around Bucky until he’s now facing him.

It’s just after he unlocks the fifth tumbler that T’Challa accidentally hits the tripwire.

 _“Yiighh—”_ Bucky’s voice comes out in an unsettlingly high-pitched whine, and his eyes redden as they look up into T’Challa’s. Less helpfully, his shoulders begin to spasm.

 _Damn_ _it—_ “Nearly there—Bucky. One more. One more.” T’Challa massages his free hand deep into Bucky’s flesh-shoulder in attempt to cajole him into relaxing, but it’s to no avail.

“Can’t—c’stop—T’Cha— _iihhngh—_ ” Tears are streaming from Bucky’s eyes at this point. He’s pulled his hand into such a tight fist that his knuckles have gone white, and his shudders have amplified into all-out thrashing. Whatever T’Challa does now, it has to be fast, before Bucky goes into convulsions.

In one fluid movement, T’Challa straddles Bucky’s lap and presses his weight down onto him to soften the spasming of his hips and torso. From this angle, he can more quickly reach the sixth and final tumbler— _if_ Bucky could somehow control the shaking of his shoulders, even for a split-second.

 _Need to have him focus that pain—channel it_ —well, T'Challa knows what he would do.

T’Challa pulls Bucky’s head forward until Bucky’s face is pressed into the crook of his neck. “Bite down,” he orders. “Now.”

“Mnn—” After a moment’s hesitation, Bucky bites him. _Hard_.

T’Challa is seeing stars from the sudden influx of pain, but the move works. In he shoves the tip of that curved rod, as Bucky howls through his teeth and deep into T’Challa’s bones, but he’s holding himself just still enough and—

 _There_.

Even if the final tumbler had not slid smoothly into place with a whisper-soft click _,_ even if the metal arm had not come cleanly off and fallen to the floor with a resounding _thud,_ even if the muscles in Bucky’s torso and legs and everything else T’Challa can feel hadn’t immediately released all their long-coiled tension, T’Challa knows without a doubt that he’d succeeded—because of the sound that comes out of Bucky’s mouth then and there.

It’s a high, keening mewl, one gradually cascading down into an impossibly deep and quivering moan that rumbles through every one of T’Challa’s nerves. Bucky unhinges his jaw with a sticky squelch, then pulls his mouth away from the bruise T’Challa can already feel forming on the crook of his neck. After however long Bucky had spent biting it, that sudden lack of pain there feels downright sublime; T’Challa can scarcely imagine the magnitude of the corresponding high on Bucky’s end.

Bucky rests his forehead against T’Challa’s shoulder as he struggles to catch his breath. “Th-thanks,” he whispers, and T’Challa can feel the press of his lips widening into a smile—as well as a sudden dampness, now trickling down his cheek and onto where their bodies remain pressed against one another.

It’s only once T’Challa drops the metal tool to the floor that he realizes he’s been holding his own breath, that he’s now gasping for air himself. His arm and shoulder muscles have cramped up for holding so tensely still for those uncountable minutes. He knows it because another hand has begun kneading his aching right shoulder in turn.

T’Challa thinks he could spend an eternity here, held firmly in place as Bucky’s fingers work blissful pressure and heat into his shoulder and back. "How does it feel now?" he murmurs, his lips just brushing the shell of Bucky's ear. "Still detect anything...?"

“Feels good,” Bucky rasps, shifting how his head rests atop T’Challa’s shoulder as he continues to massage his back. “Feels great. I—I owe you.”

“Is that so.” But T’Challa keeps his tone light. It’s a success, after all, and no small one. He smiles, closes his eyes, and presses his cheek to Bucky’s temple. The last time they’d come this close—was it the rooftop, when he’d flipped Bucky onto his back? No, it must have been Vienna, when they’d tumbled down the stairs together—or, no, the airport, when— _Bast have mercy he’s—!_

There’s the deliciously slick, hot press of a tongue over that sensitive bruise on his neck. The softest touch of lips against it, then. The heat of heavy breath dampens T’Challa’s skin.

Then Bucky freezes.

“Fuck— _shit_ , I shouldn’tve—I’m so sorry, dunno what got into—I didn’t mean to—” His heart pounds against T’Challa’s chest, thrumming madly even through the dense material of his compression shirt. “Not thinking straight—”

“I’m not offended,” T’Challa laughs into his ear, too astounded to open his eyes. Too astounded, or too amused, or perhaps something else entirely. “If that’s what concerns you.” He tries to swallow his own impending sentiment with a wide smile. Oh, does he try. “You’re welcome to do that again. If you want.” Born diplomat, he.

“You’re— _God_ , I—” T’Challa detects Bucky’s head falling back against the chair’s lowered headrest. Neither his pulse nor his breathing have slowed in the least. T’Challa opens his eyes and sees him, sees how terribly flushed his face has become. “I’m too obvious, right? You’ve—you knew the whole time? Ever since the gym? Since we…?”

“Knew what the whole time,” T’Challa asks as his own heart rate skyrockets. “…Bucky?”

Bucky’s response is a near whisper. “I think—I think you took a piece of me with you, the first time we met. First time we fought.” His breath comes out in rapid bursts, as though he’s begun sprinting. “It was—you’re stunning. I was stunned. Even though I was the one you were coming after—I couldn't look away. I was terrified, yeah, but just witnessing you in action felt like a privilege. You found me before anyone else did, caught me off guard the way no one else could. Not the police, not Steve or the other Avengers. Just you.” He averts T’Challa’s gaze then. “D'you know that I was all set to return to you, the next day? You’d read me like a damn book. _God—_ ”

 _Stunning_. T’Challa blinks a few times, as though refreshing his eyes would bring further clarity to what exactly he’s hearing. But none is needed, he supposes. Decades down the line, he suspects, he'll still not be able to shake from his mind the vision of Bucky waltzing back into that Bucharest gym, straight into his open arms, thus avoiding the whole fiasco with Zemo. The fiasco, and the critical truth revealed within.

To think that Bucky could have instead wasted the bulk of his lucid years rotting in a Wakandan prison cell? T'Challa can only momentarily thank fate for intervening. 

“I disagree with that last part,” he replies, resting his hands on Bucky’s broad shoulders and locking his fingers behind his neck. “You were by no means the man I’d expected to find. But if it’s any consolation, you were an engaging read.” It’s an admission he hadn’t expected to make himself, but it’s out now. He’s out. “You still are, if it needs saying.”

Bucky flushes even more furiously at that. “Once I learned who you really were… that was what blew my mind. HYDRA—” His mouth twitches as though he’d bitten himself. “They’d trained _me_ to be the perfect soldier and the perfect spy, built me from the ground up to do nothing else. Yet you can be all of that—hell, you make it look easy—and on top of calling the shots. On top of running the whole damn show. You switched gears so fast—to just—to turn around and forgive me, just like that?” His voice has begun to shake. “It’s—it’s admirable. I admire you. Majesty.” He licks his lip. “T’Challa.”

T’Challa squeezes his eyes shut in mirth, unable to keep from smiling. His heart is soaring just from hearing his own name in that softly graveled voice. Bucky’s words ring in his ears and swim in his head. He’d spoken more just now than he has possibly in the whole past week, and it’s almost too much for T’Challa to immediately process. But for someone that he had terrorized for days on end to—to respond with this level of—of respect, of admiration? _I admire you_. Bucky had really said that. Not a dream, not a fantasy, nothing at all of the sort. 

Oh, he can tell.

"It was not my efforts alone that brought me to Zemo's confession, mind you." T’Challa heaves a quiet sigh. “I have an excellent support system, one that I try to use to its fullest extent. A leader is only so great as the combined might of his subjects, and an incredible group of people work alongside me. I would never have found you, nor Zemo, without their accomplishments.” Gods, if Monica could only see him now; T'Challa realizes he’s begun absent-mindedly tracing Bucky’s collarbones with his thumbs. The man’s neck is terribly hot beneath his fingertips, his pulse bursting like gunfire. “To be their king is an immense honor, one to which I can only hope to someday prove myself worthy.”

Bucky’s eyes glimmer. “That just proves my point. You jump in yourself to do the dangerous stuff, instead of hiding behind an army or assassins like every other world leader. You work with your people instead of making them work for you. You’re both the head and the hands at once. You can be whatever you want to be, and you make the most of that.” He swallows. “HYDRA made me a machine—one that anybody can control, if they wanted. The rest of my life is gonna be shaped by them, by what they’ve done to me. One way or another. But you—” That heartbreaking smile returns to his lips. “There’s no predicting you, T’Challa. God knows I couldn’t clock you to save my life.”

T’Challa does momentarily consider the sheer unlikelihood of their current state. Hardly a textbook operation, these past few days, with too many twists and turns for any reasonable soul to ever have predicted. And now he’s here, straddling the most wanted man in the world, one to which he’d staked claim for an entirely different end. Could he only wrap himself so tightly around the man as to absorb him whole, to hide him away from those still out for his blood.

 _Silver lining_ , T’Challa thinks, his heart aching. One good turn of events cannot hope to justify or balance out the horrors prior, but _oh,_ does it lessen their sting.

“You are no machine,” T'Challa utters slowly, placing as much emphasis as he can on each word. “HYDRA wrested control of your head and your hands, and they still lost you in the end. You no longer kill for them, despite all the measures they’d put in place to restrain you. Now they are the ones lying in ruins, and I am the one privileged with your company.” He tucks a loose strand of Bucky’s hair behind his ear, decidedly pleased with himself.

Bucky purses his lips for a heady minute, as though taken aback by that last sentiment. “That wasn't just me, either. I got lucky. Steve was the one who got through to me, after disrupting Insight. He was the one who jarred me out of it." Again he looks away. "Since then I’ve only been hiding, like a coward. Once I'd taken out the rest of HYDRA, it was obvious there's nothing else that I can really do. Killing's all I’m good for.”

 _Come, now._ “When I think of cowardice,” T’Challa replies, tilting Bucky’s face back up until their eyes meet, “I see Zemo. _He_ had full control of his actions, and still succumbed to his childish rage, unleashing his pain upon the rest of the world in the name of retribution. He could have used his skills to ensure fewer would experience the horrors that he had. He could well have taken a leaf from your book and destroyed the rest he could find of HYDRA’s ilk, rather than igniting a feud between those sworn to protect the innocent.”

Bucky scowls. “But, T’Challa—taking out the HYDRA remnants wasn't enough. I should've gone after Rumlow, before he attacked the IFID. Zemo wasn’t HYDRA, but he still killed your father and hurt everyone at the U.N. and then—Siberia—I should've—”

“That’s right,” T’Challa replies, and again T’Chaka’s sweet face burns in his eyes. They sting and fill, no matter how hard he wills otherwise. It’s all he can do to attempt to emulate his father’s wisdom, to speak how he would surely have spoken. “Unlike you, Zemo only continued to spread violence and pain, rather than stopping it at its source. He would have made the world a much finer place by going into hiding the way you did, by trying to build a new life from nothing, by shouldering his grief. Instead, so many innocent souls suffered, needlessly, at his hands.” T’Challa detects a peculiar damp trail coursing down his own cheek then. He wipes it away, sliding his right hand down until it’s firmly over Bucky’s heart. “Including my father, yes—and including you.”

T’Challa faintly hears his own words echo about that cabin until they thicken and color into voices he’s not heard in days and in decades. If the dead truly whisper to those in their most vulnerable moments, then perhaps this is the closest he’s ever been to that proverbial state. As the otherworldly chorus fades into ringing silence, T’Challa’s eyes continue to swim.

Bucky places his hand atop T’Challa’s, his index finger pausing reverently over the thick ring on his middle finger. “I’m so sorry about your father,” he rasps, squeezing tight. “I know you loved him. The world’s a poorer place without him.”

It’s astounding, this contrast now. In every way Zemo’s same words had felt hollow and meaningless to T’Challa, Bucky’s now seem to settle in his heart and fill it with warmth, flooding it to the brim, overwhelming him.

T’Challa cannot speak. It’s the curse of the freshly-rendered _Haramu-fal,_ that there’s no longer room in him for a succinct, gracious, eloquent response, nothing befitting a warrior nor king.

Because he feels like a boy again, _again_. He feels so very small, and sad, and then something else entirely. Something too wonderful for this life, and altogether too bittersweet. It’s too much for him, at least in this blazing moment.

_Papa—he’s—I’ve—_

Twin scorching rivers continue to cascade down T’Challa’s cheeks, until Bucky cups T’Challa’s cheek in his hand. T’Challa clasps his over it, locking their fingers together to hold him there.

“I miss him.” T’Challa’s voice has long broken; the words come out ragged and wet. “But—thank you. For your—” _What’s the damn word?_  “—condolences.” He’s begun sniffling now. _No—control yourself—_

Whether Bucky actually says _come here_ aloud or whether T’Challa can somehow read it in the shifting of his posture, it registers all the same. T’Challa heaves a wet sigh and presses his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder. That heavy arm wraps around him, pulling him close and stroking his back.

How preposterous, T’Challa thinks, that it’s in the hold of this stranger where he at last feels free to unstop himself. That his would-be prey and victim had seen straight through him, and with S’Yan’s caliber of unassuming wisdom. ‘ _Couldn’t clock me?’ Could have fooled me, soldier._

But right now, there are no pretenses that T’Challa need maintain. A stranger had spotted this grieving child through all his noise and all his masks, one so long ensconced in the hardened flesh and weariness of an older, stoical soul. These trappings T’Challa can shed, can toss to the floor alongside Bucky’s clothing and knives and that damned arm.

He does suppose he can always control himself later.

However much time passes as T’Challa buries himself against Bucky, he will never come to remember. His universe is reduced to calm darkness, the low din of their concerted breaths and the jet’s humming engines, and the soothing heat enveloping him from all sides. Whether he’s fallen asleep this way, or whether Bucky has, he cannot say and does not try to discern.

T’Challa is back inside that tunnel, but he’s no longer alone; his reflection has joined him in this place, has proven willing to wait out the eternity alongside him. The horrid crack he’d punched into the mirror has somehow vanished, leaving an unbroken image, a whole one.

Bucky is no stranger. Not any longer. T’Challa thinks he could map every stretch of his skin, could plot every line of his face, could pick out his whispering voice through the din of a mob. He knows him, just as he knows the shape of his own reflection.

Is this, T’Challa wonders, how a soul heals itself? By embracing its ascribed demon within the confines of a black hole, void of all logic and reason, abandoning all facades, until the fiend reflects him? Or until he reflects that which he himself sees? …Is there any difference?

T’Challa again looks into that mirror. His reflection looks far healthier now, vibrant and alert. The light has returned to his eyes, color to his lips, and steadiness to his breath. His reflection is a beautiful one, T’Challa thinks. A lovely one.

Raising his head, T’Challa opens his eyes and lifts his hands to clasp Bucky’s face. Bucky’s lips part ever so slightly as T’Challa leans forward and kisses Bucky’s forehead, his left cheek, his right. He looks into those glistening eyes once again, and traces that reddened lip with his thumb.

His heart stops as Bucky kisses his fingertip.

It’s an incredibly subtle movement, one T’Challa surely catches by way of his enhanced sensory perception alone. At the same time, Bucky traces his hand along T’Challa’s forearm, beneath the delicate skin of his wrist, against the sensitive palm of his hand, and then interlocks their fingers. The movement is a deliberate one, as the next thing T’Challa knows, Bucky has leaned forward to brush his lips against his.

 _Yes._ T’Challa leans into the kiss, wrapping his free hand around Bucky’s shoulders to pull him flush against him. _Come—_

 _Now entering final landing vector_ , T’Challa’s keybead signals. _Pilot’s seatbelt is unfastened._

“The hell?” Bucky rubs his chest where it had jolted him with static. “What was that?!”

“Ah.” T’Challa sighs and taps the golden fang. “Pardon. It's called a keybead, and it transmits information through touch.” He wants to curse the damn thing for its poor, poor timing. “It’s not keyed to your physiology, hence that shock just now. Security measure.”

“Well,” Bucky slowly deadpans, "that's just swell." And they both split into raucous laughter.

T’Challa cannot stop the mirthful tears from running down his face. In this curious void he’s spent alongside Bucky, something has come undone within him. A deluge of some nameless force surges through him, cleansing and cool. Unstopped indeed.

It’s the first time that he’s felt this happy, T’Challa realizes, since before Vienna. He’s finally stepped from that tunnel to inhale his first sweet breath of fresh, cold air. Early springtime, mountaintop air, brisk with melted snow. Gods, he could sing. He could dance, could skip in circles around this narrow cabin. He feels so very much the fool, and will not suffer for it.

While Bucky’s mouth is still slackened in laughter, T’Challa leans in once more and kisses him, slowly, gently, straining his senses and ready to pull back at a moment’s notice.

But Bucky’s surprised gasp gives way only to a pleasured sigh in the base of his throat. The salty tang of blood lightly cloys his breath, mingling with the latent wisps of heart-leaf smoke likely still present in T'Challa's. There’s the flick of a tongue against T’Challa’s lower lip as Bucky's arm encircles him once again, those fingertips exploring his back and working into his muscles as before. A low groan escapes T’Challa’s mouth as Bucky finds a particularly sensitive spot and focuses his efforts there. “Like that?”

 _“Yes._ ” T’Challa doesn’t have the oxygen for a longer sentence. Instead he presses both of his hands against Bucky’s chest, reciprocating the circular motions until Bucky’s heated moaning perforates the hum of the engines beneath them.

…Engines. Right. They’re still on this jet. _Ugh._

That T’Challa is completely comfortable here is utterly cruel and unfair. A cruel scrap of responsibility deep in the recesses of his brain doesn’t want Bucky getting sparked by his keybead again, and there’s also the somewhat more critical task of ensuring they don’t crash into anything during the vector shift.

“Damn.” He kisses the corner of Bucky’s mouth before reluctantly pulling back. “I’m afraid I must see to the controls.” Especially given the messages he’s receiving now from Aneka and Ayo. _Midair handoff…_? “I…suppose I could let you go now.”

“We really have to land?” It’s the closest T’Challa has ever seen Bucky come to pouting. “What if, instead, you snapped my arm back on and we do that whole thing again? ‘Cause it’d be worth it. Just saying.”

“Bucky.” _Do not tempt me,_ T'Challa wants to write onto that scorching tongue with his own. All of his strength has been spent just to pull away; he’s entirely ill-prepared to withstand anything else at this point, much less the age-old heat pooling in his core.

“Alright. Yeah. Safety first.” After taking a deep breath, Bucky finally nods and slackens his arm. “Wait—we really flew to Berlin in ninety minutes?”

T’Challa slides back onto his feet and offers Bucky his hand. “With an empty cargo bay, we could have made it in half that time.”

Bucky lurches up from the chair, swaying so violently that T’Challa idly wonders if he’s taken head trauma. Then again, they can always run a medical scan aboard the corvette. Standard procedure for each year’s inevitable handful of refugees.

“Jesus. But I believe you. Uh.” Bucky glances toward the narrow stairwell before pulling his harness and vest back on. “What’s the plan, exactly? Should Steve and I stay up here while you bring Zemo out?”

“I’d planned as much…” T’Challa scoops up the shredded arm, then seats himself in the pilot chair and goes to work. Now that he’s paying full attention to his keyfeed, six unread messages await him from Ayo, eighteen from different ministers back home, and four from S’Yan. And one from Shuri, her first since he'd broken the initial news. “But one of our stealth corvettes has also arrived here just now. Two members of my security team will board this jet to take Zemo down, and we will in turn hop onto the other ship.”

“Stealth… corvette.” Bucky’s eyes become very round. “Like a battleship?”

“Somewhat.” T’Challa cracks his neck and electronically signs the three forms S’Yan has sent him. They have quite the trip ahead of them, now that he’s begun to plan it. “You will see.”

* * *

**BERLIN**

Bucky’s seeing, alright. He’s just not quite believing.

HYDRA’s helicarriers had been state-of-the-art monstrosities only feasible thanks to the combined might of SHIELD and intensive private funding. This had been the point and goal of all the syndicate’s operations, of course, but _6 April 2014, 16:58, Washington D.C._ had found Bucky tasked with keeping an enemy from taking out all three ships by way of a set of manually-placed computer chips. It’s embarrassing, in hindsight.

Not that Bucky’s supposed to be the one feeling embarrassed about that whole mess. He tells himself _he’s_ not the one who programmed a series of kill-sats with that many obvious loopholes. _He_ was able to kill all his lucidly-chosen targets with a few bullets and, in two cases, his favorite knife. No flying battleships or illicit satellite launches necessary.

Still, the sleek craft floating before him now is doubtlessly lightyears ahead of any helicarrier he’s ever boarded. For starters, he’s barely able to see the thing. Its slick hull shines with the scant starlight peeking through the gaps in the rosy cloud cover beyond it. Only the telltale refracting of the city lights below hint to its size.

The view takes Bucky’s breath away, even faster than had the sudden influx of frigid air when the cargo bay door had slid open. A railed walkway extends from the ship toward the VTOL. Within seconds, they’re inside a cloud. It’s _cold_ , almost as cold as Siberia.

“We’re moving onto that thing?” Steve blearily asks before pulling a double-take. His cheek is reddened from having pressed against his shoulder as he’d slept, but his eyes look somewhat brighter now. “Hey—when d’you take your arm off?”

“Little while ago,” Bucky replies, still mesmerized by the semivisible hull of the other ship. “Was getting itchy.”

“If you say so.” Steve seems a tad too drowsy for this conversation, in Bucky’s opinion. T’Challa laughs through his nose before securing the lip of the ramp to the VTOL.

By now two women in black and gold uniforms have begun marching their way. They both carry dark metal spears, and Bucky can detect at least six other weapons hidden on each, suggesting the true amount to be well over twice that.

“ _Mtukufu,_ ” they call in unison. They hold their heads high, and voices hum in Bucky’s bones, one as deep as the other is high. It’s all he can do not to shiver from the single word, and his mind nonetheless flies to a candlelit cathedral leagues and years behind him. These two warriors are somehow a whole chorus between them, haunting and lovely at once.

“Okoye. Nakia.” T’Challa smiles and jerks his head over his shoulder toward where Zemo has begun to stir. _“Kila la kheri._ ”

Once Okoye calls back to them from the bridge, T’Challa leads Bucky and Steve down the crosswalk. Bucky can’t help but look down. He doesn’t get vertigo, but an annoying dizziness had somehow taken over his system since he’d stood up. The quilt of headlight streams and glowing orange rooftops and sunset-hued haze beneath his feet blurs like rippling water.

A moment passes and the sunset bleeds to red.

The last time he'd stood on an airship's metal catwalk, this high up—the river beneath them is veiled in smoke, the Triskelion crumpling, the other helicarriers falling from the sky. His ears haven't quit ringing from the too-close gunshots, from the explosions going off, rocking them, flinging Steve out over the river, the cut on his mouth fresh— _Soviet slug, no rifling_ —he needs to jump—it's the only way—

But someone's blocking his path. Someone he's not supposed to meet just yet. A man from the future, his gorgeous features flooded with concern.

_How'd T'Challa get here?_

Bucky lands back in the present as Steve clamps one hand tight on his shoulder. _Not this time, pal._

Blue notebook memory, yeah, but the voice is still the same. It’s endured, just as he has. Bucky nods to T'Challa, who steels his jaw and turns back around. He squeezes Steve's hand and presses onward.

Past the ship’s airlock, an antechamber opens up to an enormous command center lined with panels that Bucky can’t clearly pin as either metallic or wooden. The inside of the corvette looks as disproportionately massive as the VTOL’s interior had; dozens of dark-screened control stations line the gently curving walls, four of them occupied by more uniformed women. In the center of the room, three more women stand at a round control panel, the one in uniform gesturing over its surface as though moving invisible chess pieces.

Bucky thinks he almost recognizes the other two, both clad in matching black dresses and stiletto heels, whose eyes had locked onto him the instant he’d walked in. They regard him with a mixture of caution and pity and perhaps something else, something he can’t quite pick out, and he strongly suspects that they could each murder him with their thumbs.

It strikes him now that literally every person on this ship is densely armed, each moving or standing with the stance of a highly-disciplined fighter. _Swell._  

“Captain Rogers, Sargent Barnes, you now stand within Wakandan jurisdiction. We have granted you temporary amnesty and, as such, request your compliance.” T’Challa retracts the walkway and motions to a passing officer. _Officer, or scientist?_ Unlike the others, she wears a black lab coat over her uniform. Her head is shorn, and half a dozen gold hoops dangle from each of her ears. A bronze pendant hangs from lowest one in her right earlobe. “Nareema, please key them in. And they need to undergo medical exams.”

Nareema’s rich brown eyes widen for a split second. She looks Bucky and Steve over before tilting her head to T’Challa. _“Mtukufu._ This way, you two. Touch nothing.”

“Ma’am.” Steve tightens his grip on Bucky’s shoulder but continues to walk just behind her brisk steps, effectively shepherding Bucky along. “Let’s go see. It’s okay, Buck. It’s okay.”

Bucky’s throat has begun to burn. He casts a quick glance behind to T’Challa. No small part of him wants to stay here, wants only to curl up in a dark corner while T’Challa works with his team. He wouldn’t get in anyone’s way, and he could be utterly quiet, just so long as he could stay in the same room as T’Challa. It’s ridiculous, he knows. He’s practically become a toddler in these few short hours, with no grasp of object permanence. If he leaves T’Challa now, he may never see him again, and so panic builds in his gut.

T’Challa catches his gaze. “Go with them. We will speak again.” He gives a reassuring smile before turning to approach the central control panel, lifting one hand to the bruise on his neck as he steps. The two high-heeled women glance between him and Bucky in perfect unison, their sharp eyes effectively cutting through the fog of his dread.

 _Pull yourself together, soldier._ After all, if there’s one thing Bucky knows he can do, it’s complying.

Bucky keeps his hand firmly to his side as he and Steve follow Nareema through a pair of security portals and then peel off to what looks like a med bay. Floating gurneys, sterile machinery and more of the curiously blank screens take up all of the wall space, save for another metal door, possibly to a storeroom. _How big is this place…?_

As Nareema begins rapidly conversing with another woman in a lab coat and silver-cuffed locs, Bucky closes his eyes.

However many minutes he’d spent under T’Challa, they had not been goddamn long enough. Even now he can still feel T’Challa’s weight bearing down onto him, holding him securely in place as he’d thrashed. That damn tripwire had shattered him to pieces, and then T’Challa had pulled him back together again, cool and collected, with enough control for the both of them in that hot instant.

Cool and collected, right up until he’d broken apart himself.

Watching T’Challa weep freely had been equal parts distressing and grounding, hammering in the reality that the man had so recently borne witness to blood-curdling atrocity, had suffered profound loss. For all his titles and responsibilities and powers, T’Challa is still just one person, and a person can only take so much. Bucky is no stranger to the notion; at several different points he’d been unable to tell who exactly had created the tears that had trickled down his skin.

“My name is Amanika,” the second scientist informs them with a dazzling smile. _The Good Cop_ , Bucky can’t help but presume. “We require an up-to-date medical scan for everyone on board. It won’t take long, I promise.”

“No problem,” says Steve, who squeezes Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky nods, gently exhaling. _Have faith. Have faith._ He counts up to ten and then back to zero as Amanika and Nareema use compass-shaped devices to scan his and Steve’s chests, foreheads and index fingers from inches away. They glance back and forth between the different blank screens lining the walls as if reading them.

“No overt ailments to speak of,” Amanika eventually calls to Bucky, her eyebrows raised as though in pleasant surprise. “That is, no diseases nor virulent anomalies. Now, do you both consent to vaccination? It will help you acclimatize to the rest of the crew’s herd immunity. Should you wish to apply for a Wakandan visa within the next five years, these exact vaccines would be required anyways.”

“I do,” Steve immediately exclaims. “You should, too, bud. D’you know that the States used ‘em to stop polio? They ended _polio_ , Bucky.”

Amanika chuckles. “Your temperature may run a little high for a few days; it’s your immune system working overtime, so to speak. We have basic meds that can reduce fever if it taxes you too heavily.”

“Sounds good. You up for it, Buck?”

Bucky nods. “Can’t be worse than anything I’ve been injected with already.” Steve’s quiet for a while after that. Bucky half-wishes he’d bitten his tongue.

Once they each receive two sets of shots, Amanika motions for Bucky to step aside so she can unlock the cabinet behind him. Within lies a shelf of narrow racks, each holding several dozen thumb-sized ornaments. While no two are shaped the same way, their sheens all match that of her necklace pendant and Nareema’s largest earring—and, Bucky realizes, T’Challa’s fang.

“Keybeads,” he murmurs, again feeling that tiny, searing spark.

Amanika’s face lights up. “Yes! These are of the basic standard-issue caliber, but you will have the option to purchase better ones should you qualify for a Wakandan visa. One more minute, and yours will be ready.” She pulls one from the drawer and inserts it into one of the machines into which she’d earlier entered his chest scan.

Bucky inhales sharply. “Wait, for us? I’m not sure we can afford—” He glances at Steve, who looks equally shocked. “I mean, even in the off chance they haven’t frozen your bank account yet—”

Amanika bursts into laughter, covering her mouth with one hand. Nareema shushes her, albeit with a slight smirk.

“So…they’re cheap? ‘Cause then we could pay you back—”

“Or we could send the bill to Stark,” Steve grumbles, and they all chuckle together at that. “Bastard owes you a new arm, too.”

 _So he's made it past the denial stage._ But Bucky shrugs. While the sudden shift in his balance had been disorienting at first, he has to admit that there’s something comforting in not having that awful thing attached to him any longer. There are plenty of one-armed people in the world, he knows, who get along just fine. He doesn’t mind the thought of being in their number.

And without it, he’s also that much less of a threat. He's not too hot at one-handing a sniper rifle, and he sure can’t deflect bullets with his right arm.

“You.” Nareema glances back and forth between Bucky and the readings from his keybead’s machine, her expression strained. “Dehydrated, hypoglycemic, and in dire need of a few REM cycles. Go lie down, now.” She points to the row of padded cots in one corner. _“Yeye anahitaji maji maji,”_ she calls to Amanika.

Steve shoots Bucky a look as Bucky lowers himself onto the cot. “Thought you would’ve napped on the flight over, Buck.”

“Had to get the arm off.” Bucky had watched T’Challa grab the stump off the jet’s floor. Now he idly wonders whether the vibranium in its coating had been stolen. “Then we, uh. Chatted for a bit.”

“I think I heard some of that,” Steve chuckles. “What’d you two do after that? Hug it out?”

“Yeah. That’s what happened.” Bucky wills Steve to _please goddamn leave it at that._ He doesn’t know the finer points of his relationship with T’Challa any better now than he did in the hour before.

His wildest dreams aside, Bucky doesn’t hold substantial illusions of taking it any further with the king of an entire country, much less one in Wakanda’s current political situation. And that’s just the logistical argument.

Because he knows it’s only a matter of time until T’Challa gets how messed up he actually is. How not-fun spending longer than an hour with him would surely be.

And how much of a threat Bucky could be, if the wrong person found out about them. Of just how much danger he could pose to someone who very much needs to stay as alive as possible for the greater good.

No, it’s for the best interests of several million people, minimum, that Bucky prioritize responsibility and risk mitigation above his own desires.

That’s what he’ll say when he and T’Challa speak again. After all, he hadn’t lied earlier; T’Challa has it in him to be an incredible leader, a wise one. _He’ll understand._ _He has to._

No matter what Bucky wants, deep down, in the furthest recesses of his head and heart. No matter what a perfect world, lifetimes away, could maybe allow. He knows better than anyone that this world is a massively imperfect one. As with all things, that which he wants most simply cannot _be_.

Once they're off the ship, Bucky knows he can slip away. He could disappear, maybe deep into the Arctic, and retreat into his dreams. He’ll let the ice take him, the way it’d taken Steve. Only then can he kiss T’Challa’s beautiful face, safely within the confines of his head. The world will spin on without him, a world made better with T’Challa’s uncompromised leadership. _It’s better this way._

This is what he tells himself, in a vained attempt to quiet the stinging of his throat and eyes. _Stop it—_

“Necklace? Bracelet? Earring?” Amanika shoots Bucky a cherubic grin. “Ampallang?”

Nareema groans from her desk. _“Nika._ ”

“Joking! Joking.” After rolling her eyes, Amanika yanks on a pair of thin medical gloves and plucks the keybead from the machine with a flourish.

Bucky’s not sure he wants to know what _ampallang_ means. “Uh. Necklace?”

“Got it. Test it out, now. It can take some getting used to.” Amanika hands him the keybead, now strung onto a steel medic-alert chain. Bucky fastens it on, and his entire world lights up.

All of the black screens on the walls now glow with full-color text and graphics, animated tables and charts and live-updating feeds. A holographic starling with glossy, ocean-hued feathers sits upon Nareema’s left shoulder, preening itself. Dancing pink and indigo tattoos gleam from Amanika’s forearms and neck. The machines around the room each emit faint hums of differing wavelengths. And those are just _external readings._

Internally, Bucky’s own glucose count is indeed low, and his temperature is just reaching one-hundred Fahrenheit—sixty on a _WKZ_ scale, which he can immediately search online for clarification. Browsers with names he’s never heard of flicker translucently into his vision, and he can run queries without having to utter any words aloud.

There's also a notification bank. One message titled  _Read Me_  awaits his attention, while another,  _UserBioscan070516,_ has already been opened, by _DM12Nareema_ three minutes before, and edited by _DM13Amanika_ one minute after that _(19:32 CET - user successfully keyed in_.)  _Read Me_ seems to appear before Bucky’s eyes the instant he thinks of inspecting it. It looks like instructions, and he can opt to either have the words play audibly in his ears or let the default command-signal setup absorb directly into his muscle-memory processes.

“How about that,” Bucky breathes as he drinks in the scene before him. He’s in a uniform that’s a tad big for him, but its buttons are still gleaming and, boy, does he look sharp. His date doesn’t seem to find the technological spectacle quite so enthralling as he does, but he’ll make it up to her soon enough by taking her to a dance hall. He does love dancing, now, don’t get him wrong—just not quite as much as he does this flashy marvel of scientific achievement. No matter how many years pass, Bucky suspects he’ll always love experiencing state-of-the-art tech.

“You’ll speak to M’Yra next.” Nareema hands Steve his bead. It occurs to Bucky that she’s returned to speaking in that Bantu dialect she’d used earlier with Amanika, but he can understand her perfectly regardless. _This thing’s a translator, too?_ Nuts. “For a nominal fee, she can thaw and transfer your funds to a secure Wakandan account.”

Steve’s jaw drops. “That isn’t illegal?”

Nareema and Amanika exchange glances and shrug. “It’s legal in Wakanda.”

“You may repay us for the beads once your documentation is complete,” Amanika laughs with a wink. “Follow Nareema to the officers’ deck. That one will be on his feet again in time.” She nudges her head Bucky’s way before pulling an IV bag from a chilled cabinet.

“Buck?” Steve glances his way as he fastens the keybead to his dog tag chain. “Are you gonna be okay if I go upstairs for a bit?”

“Yeah.” Bucky looks up at Amanika as she inserts his IV needle. “If T’Challa trusts you, then so should we.”

“A reliable policy, for the most part.” Amanika activates his IV drip before returning to her desk. “Rest easy, soldier. Nareema or I will be here when you awaken."

"Got it. And—thank you. For everything."

Bucky closes his eyes, but sleep does not come easily.

On some level, he does want to rest easy. It's been a hell of a day and of a week. This is the longest he’s ever stayed awake, and he knows his body can only take so much, serum or no.

Plus, he’s on an invisible battleship heading to a destination that even he doesn’t know. T’Challa is two rooms over, and Steve’s upstairs, and every person he's seen on this ship so far can clearly hold their own. If there’s any place he can relax, it has to be here. It’s really just a matter of time before he falls unconscious.

That said, he also has half a mind to search for any keybead processes that could be cloaking a GPS. But he has no earthly idea where to even begin searching.

Still, Bucky supposes, if all else fails? He could always just stick the thing on a moving car and bolt in the opposite direction. He could make for the Arctic circle before anyone would think to begin triangulating him. Yeah. That could work. That's the plan. Just as soon as he's off the ship.

But, in the meantime, Bucky has _extranet access_. Within seconds he finds a supposed insider account of King T’Chaka’s administration _(unabridged, released for his silver jubilee in 2013)._

With any luck, Bucky can bury his own aching heart under a mound of names and dates and treaties and court cases. Or maybe the author will prove to be of the droll variety, and he'll doze off in spite of himself. Either way.

In he dives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong'o have been confirmed for Okoye and Nakia in Black Panther!!!! To comply with the canon info, Okoye is the Commander of the Dora Milaje in my fic.  
> Also Roxane Gay has been announced as Marvel's first ever black woman writer! She and Ta-Nehisi Coates will be penning _[Black Panther: World of Wakanda](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/07/roxane-gay-and-ta-nehisi-coates-to-cowrite-marvel.html)_ , which will center around Ayo and Aneka's relationship!  
> Thanks to requirings and daenabenjen42 for your kind comments!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now for something completely different!  
> The prequel to this monster-sized chapter is [Steve and Nat’s unabridged storyboard of their CATWS mall scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nby2PmjDB4). Just watch the first 7 seconds lmao.

* * *

**CHANDELEUR SOUND**

Fifteen years, Jericho thinks as he gazes out across the open sea. Just about.

Fifteen years ago, in this very spot, he’d have been surrounded by sky-stroking bald cypress trees, their boughs too thick and dense for him to have dreamt of navigating unaided. The mere mention of steering a boat through such would have earned him only jeering laughter. But all Jericho can think of is how the final dredges of the setting sun's light would have shimmered marvelously through their lacy tresses of Spanish moss. The swooping silhouettes and chipper calls of their nesting cranes might have even stood a chance at calming his nerves right now.

Instead there is nothing to shield himself, his company and his airboat from the last orange rays bleeding violet from the searing line of the horizon. Not even the barrier islands break the separation of sky and sea; those in his path had long been battered down to flat shoals, their just-visible coatings of sand beneath the Gulf waters only reflecting the setting sun behind them that much more intensely.

Sighing, Jericho looks down to where the Daywalker sits at his feet.

Blade has spent most of the evening in a curious hush. To the average person, the only discernible noise for miles around would have been the hollow roar of the airboat’s engine, but wherever Blade goes becomes steeped in a very precise degree of chilliness. A festive dearth of heat, Jericho thinks, not unlike like those December nights spent just a few steps too far from the blazing pyramids along the Mississippi’s banks. Like Jericho’s, Blade's demeanor invites the denizens of the planes beyond to sit and stay awhile.

Even out here, this far into the Gulf, Jericho still sees many a translucent visitor leaping and dancing in its eternal spiral. He can only wonder how many of their living descendants would remain nested here yet had their home not been eroded to oblivion.

“Should be a shallow-water rig just on the other side of the shoals,” Blade eventually murmurs, keeping his head bowed over his clasped hands. Bowing—in prayer? Fear? _What gives the Daywalker pause?_

“Yeah?” Jericho reaches into his shirt for his herb-steeped medical mask. The single case whereby he’s lucky for his own humanity is his purely ordinary sense of smell; thusly he does not envy Blade one ounce, not right now nor anytime soon.

Sure enough, it’s just as they skim over the murky sand that the petrochemical smell hits like a baseball bat to the face. Jericho may as well have steered them dead-on into a brick wall of the foul exhaust. He clutches his mask more firmly to his nose while willing his eyes to quit burning. In time the inevitable green-black haze appears on the horizon.

So, too, does the rig. It’s not particularly large nor grand, this one, but a tangle of black lines and pinpricks of yellow light jutting perhaps fifty yards above sea level. The pipeline from surface to sea floor cannot be more than four hundred feet, by Jericho’s estimate. A logo banner hangs limply from one exterior catwalk with no wind to animate it. Jericho knows that logo all too well.

 _“Yeah,”_   Blade had mentioned in the car, _"this one’s a Roxxon.”_

 _“And here I’d thought they’d gone bankrupt.”_ Given that whole Mandarin mess three years back. Or had that merely been Jericho’s wishful thinking?

 _“Long as there’s demand for oil_ ,”  Blade had dryly laughed, _"Roxxon can’t afford to go bankrupt. Not while they’re still OPEC’s crown jewel. Done found ‘em another fall guy, that’s all. Nothing but a chain of puppet CEOs.”_ He’d run his tongue across those sharp, sharp teeth. _“Call this a shift in management."_

Sure. Jericho knows all about _shifts in management_.

At eleven years old, he’s an errand boy for a Brennan Family-run establishment in the upper Quarter. Centuries-old real estate, the place, and fiercely contested between two brothers, not that the kitchen staff is told to mind. Well, they don’t mind, not until they all walk up one morning to find their jobs gone. No notice save for a _CLOSED_ sign on the bolted back door. The venue’s tied up in court proceedings, they’ll later glean from local TV news, those lucky enough to have found another job in time to pay their bills. Not everyone’s lucky.

Jericho needs to be lucky. Unlike for their rent and food, he and Mama Drumm can’t barter with other worshippers to cover their electric bill, and they need just six more dollars by tonight to make it this month. If her dehumidifier doesn’t run, then her lungs make these awful noises, and through her wracking pain she won’t be able to hear the cries of the distant God, which she claims is an even worse prospect.

So Jericho pickpockets the six dollars they need from drunk tourists that night, knowing fully well he’s risking far worse than juvee. The NOTMC will happily roast his skinny ass alive in exchange for one more booked hotel room; Orleans Parish’s criminal court is little more than their marble-topped altar.

Age twenty-two, he’s a bartender, ducking to restock glasses as often as to dodge bullets. His place of work will come to be the last bastion to fall before the unconquerable value of an _up-and-coming_ _neighborhood_. The many souls flushed from their lifelong homes by skyrocketing rents dissolve into a frothing sea of vitriolic desperation. Jericho heeds the only advice he hears: that he cling to himself, he his own life-raft, as the developers’ tidal waves of _shifting management_ threaten to engulf him. Still, a sneaking suspicion tells him they’re all destined only to become fodder, for cannon and cattle alike.

On a whim, he skips work one night to smoke with a buddy from the Melph, giving the night manager no notice out of sheer spite. The next morning, the whole place’s been burned down. Friction fire—heavy mortgage rubbing against porous insurance—if ostensibly by way of cooking oil. Jericho wonders which of his bosses had jammed all the doors shut on their way out. He likes to think he can pinpoint which of the charred corpses had been his favorite coworkers; one of them is a cheerful, chubby barback who has yet to graduate high school. Was. Who’d had. Mhm, I tell you what.

At thirty-five, Jericho witnesses an entire hotel get cleaned out.

He watches, contorted within an inch of his life inside an airless dumbwaiter, as a crank-addled homeless man pops three minimum-waged custodians where they stand. They’ll later be dubbed tragic victims of a horrific rampage culminating in a gruesome suicide, and no one will ever learn how exactly a flagger had come into the possession of an M60. As he sneaks out through a second-story window, Jericho cannot help but wonder just how many dollars Mister Torres had offered the poor man for his services, to the nearest fifty. Even cows become fodder in the grand scheme of things.

Jericho’s forty-six, now, and he’s learned. Faces and facts and warning signs. Already he has a statistically longer-than-average lifespan for his kin and tax bracket. Friends have come and gone, have lived and died, and many still find time to chat him up after passing.

Even Mama Drumm has walked on. She’s since left Jericho an old boat, an older cottage, and everything she knows, having deemed his years of practicing alongside her satisfactory. He no longer serves behind wet bars or in hotels or on the parquet floors of esteemed restaurants; his devotion requires far too much of his time to permit much else at all.

A young man from Mississippi moves into her old room, he and his single suitcase. He's a good-hearted young man, always offering to help around the house. Shy young man, under all those muscles. All day he’s in school at the Algiers Military Base, where on top of a full scholarship he’s merited a staggeringly large stipend for off-base housing. Suspiciously large, not that Jericho’s the suspicious type, no ma’am. Where and how he spends his nights, Jericho doesn't ask.

In any case, Jericho is freed up to occasionally meet with Blade and Joe, to host closed worship services in his cottage, and to keep his channel open to the other plane. The longer it stays open, the stronger he grows. One lwa has claimed Jericho for itself, trailing his every step like a smart-talking shadow. The other plane’s denizens merge with this one’s in his eyes, skulking invisibly between flesh-bodies, their cries all but unheard.

 _You’re running out of time,_ they shriek, _all of you._

Jericho’s own community is dying, literally and figuratively; fewer and fewer can make it to worship, whether from a too worn-down connection to the distant God, or because someone more despondent than they had found them on their walk home.

If Jericho closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that he can’t see the same circling wheels of _shifting management_ churning bodies into gristly meat. If he covers his ears, he can quite nearly misattribute the gunfire to quote gang violence unquote, even after the 2011 mass litigation had surely consumed each and every wayward-stamped soul. They’re but clumps of stray fodder. Dried hay in a bonfire, nothing more.

And if the bullet holes occasionally resemble bite marks, well. There is no war in New Orleans.

By now the rig is an ugly net of soot-stained steel beams and haphazardly thin railing, dotted every few yards with halogen lights obscured by beige-green smog. The smell of petrol is soon lost on Jericho, if only because a stronger one has taken its place: blood, thick and fresh and nauseating in its familiarity. Moreover, all of the floodlights now flicker dark at once.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Blade hisses. “Cut the engine—they’ve already hit.” He rises to his feet while lifting one leather-gloved hand to the hilt of his katana.

Jericho complies and the roar of the engine soon dies down to nothing. The sloshing of the seawater in comparison is eerily quiet, and then at once far too loud. _Something’s wrong here._

The sound from the rig should be deafening, Jericho thinks as fresh beads of sweat course down his face, and not from the evening’s heat. With only a handful of roof-decks to cover the drilling module from the second-worst of the elements, there should be absolutely nothing masking the rig’s cacophony, not at this distance. Either Jericho’s gone deaf, or the machinery has all—has— _Mama, it’s stopped._

Halting a rig’s entire operation is as unfathomable as it is unforgivable. Operator gets too tired to stand, you replace the operator. Drill runs too hot, you rest it and switch to its alternate. Fire sparks, you activate the seawater pumps on that module alone and ring for the Coast Guard. You sure don’t shut the whole place off at once, no you don’t.

But it’s clear now that the pungent haze of blood and chemicals is nothing more than that; fog, not smokestacks. No billowing nor bellowing from any of the steel exhaust pipes or chimneys. Only yellowed emergency strips now buzz from the catwalks’ joints. The place is shut down, whether by force or worse.

“I’ll clear a path,” Blade calls over his shoulder, “but if you don’t think you can take ‘em, then stay back. Stay safe.”

“Take the—?” But Jericho’s shout is lost to the sloshing of the sea as Blade leaps off the boat. The Daywalker soars through the air, arcing like a cannonball until he disappears over the lip of the closest platform.

 _Sure, buddy, no problem. I’ll just go ahead and—and do that_. So Jericho is wholly welcome to wait out the storm until—when? Once Blade has slain all the vampires? Is this a rescue mission? Even if a tenth of the rig’s workers are still alive, Jericho can only fit five, maybe six more people on his airboat.

But if Blade falls, and Jericho’s left out here like a sitting duck, waiting for Godot…?

 _They’ll find you first_ , _Brother._

“Hush.” Jericho already knows his shadower-lwa’s opinion of the situation. He’s elected to ignore that opinion for the last three-something hours. Anyplace else, he’d light a cigarette and give his plight some deliberate thought. Here, though, could the vampires detect him from the scent of his nicotine? Jericho knows so very little about them, he realizes then. _Last favor I ever ask from the Daywalker._ Not if this is how he’s got to return them.

_It’s him versus how many, now?_

_Blade’s taken on armies of them before_ , Jericho assures the wisp of dissonance even as it wraps itself around him, resting its soft head on his shoulder with a coy pout. _This is nothing._

_Will that be an acceptable excuse for whatever does happen?_

_Nothing will happen._  Probably nothing. Hopefully nothing. What Jericho does know about _Hominus Nocturna_ is that its tissues disintegrate completely under the slightest touch of silver. No bodies left for the cops to wade through, save for those of their victims. Blade knows what he's doing, generally.

Beyond that, Jericho’s not sure he can stomach the sight of any more charred-over meat. What had been that young barback's name—?

His lwa immediately snaps him out of it.  _Quit that._

 _Like I got anything better to do_ , Jericho grumbles. 

_You could help._

_I’d only be in his way!_

_You still could help._

_You know how many times I would’ve died by going in—!_

_You could help._

“I hate you.” He doesn’t need to speak the words aloud, but they tumble free from his mouth regardless as his lwa smugly crows.

Jericho securely fastens the airboat’s keys to his steel necklace chain, along which are strung three 20ml bottles, each filled to the brim, and his leather offering pouch. He shrugs out of his waistcoat, carefully folds it atop his stole and sandals in a compartment beneath the motor, and rolls up the hems of his jeans.

Tethering the boat to one of the rig’s legs is easy enough; scaling the thing from its underside is a mite tougher. With each creak and lurch from the metallic jungle overhead, Jericho freezes in place, petrified at the thought of having been noticed by one of the region’s most notorious monsters.

 _How am I gonna fight something I can’t even bring myself to think about?_   he asks, gritting his teeth.

 _You’re not a fighter_ , his lwa agrees. _Do something else._

Jericho’s muscles harden for the second time that day as his lwa possesses his arms and calves. Within minutes he’s scaled up onto the lowest deck and is back on his feet.

The bad news is that this lowest deck is also the best-shaded one. With the sun having set only minutes before, the vampires surely had to have started out here before making their way up through the rig’s many levels.

Luckily, the first catwalk is a ghost town. No, Jericho catches himself, even ghost towns have sunlight. Erratic yellow beams split through otherwise rank, seedy silence every few seconds. No vampires in sight yet, but he can smell them. O God, can he smell their work. Once they stumble upon their first drained body, Jericho’s lwa leaves him to scout a few yards ahead, and he immediately quivers in its absence.

 _How did they make it this far out here?_   Jericho had seen no other boat beneath the rig. _Can they swim? Do vampires float?_ Could they have walked along the ocean floor? Would it have been possible for them to fly a helicopter, even with the sun up…?

A chilling absence of answers follows him across the creaking catwalk. _What I get for being suspicious._

The steel floor is cold beneath his feet as he tiptoes forward. A rust-flaked doorway leads to a completely enclosed office floor, one just airy enough to suggest the industrial A/C units had been shut off under an hour before.

Suddenly, frenzied shuffling noises startle him. Jericho sucks in a breath, feeling pieces of his own soul jump clear away from his bones in fright. He backs against a wall. _Have mercy… have mercy…_

Around the hallway’s corner, a flitting shadow stretches and then disappears with the coinciding squeak of a door. By now the only lighting is a series of red emergency panels along the floor, but that does at least mean that one generator still runs. _Keep breathing, Mama._

Jericho takes a step forward. Deep red spattering stains the hallways from floor to ceiling. The whole place still reeks. He strains his ears for shrieking or wet suckling, but is instead met with a different noise altogether: a faint stream of hollow clicks. Typing?

Around the corner is a single door, one just ajar enough to reveal a sliver of flickering green light from beyond. A foot-wide smear of blood trails from beneath the door, further down the hallway, and then up a stairwell where fat droplets still trickle from step to step. _O, God._ No way had the poor soul survived that. Jericho vows to pour one out for them at the next available opportunity. Assuming he’ll ever get one.

But something other than blood tugs at Jericho's nose, now that he's paying attention. It's sour, it's sickly, but it's definitely not the coppery plumes of a fresh wound. He does know this scent; for a hot instant he's back in his Mama's cottage, watching a man writhe on his floorboards from a botched mounting. Perhaps someone had died here, on this tiny rig, months or years or decades ago, and remained clinging to this place long after their body had been hauled off.  _Maybe that one'll know what the hell's going on._  

After silently inhaling, Jericho tiptoes up to the door.

 _Taptaptptptptaptpatptap—_ Not just the clicking of a mouse or the few letters of a password, but something longer. A message…? Had one of the crew members managed to sneak past the bloodsuckers? Jericho supposes he’d best be ready for anything.

 _Work with me_ , Jericho begs of his cohort. _For the greater good, if nothing else—?_

 _I got you_ , his lwa laughs as it dives into him. Jericho need not look down to know that his serpentine tattoo has begun to glow.

His muscles freshly energized, Jericho gently pushes the door further open. Inside is a small office furnished only with a few filing cabinets and an outdated PC on a metal desk. The lone chair is overturned and blood-splattered papers lie strewn across the floor, but the only body in the room is one still very much alive.

“Wuh—?! _Gurgh—_ ” The hunched figure standing before the old computer whips around to face Jericho just as Jericho lands one clean kick to his gut. It’s a blow that surprises even Jericho, one purely a product of adrenaline; still, his lwa has graced him with enough force to knock the man cleanly back into the row of filing cabinets with a bang. A few of the unlocked drawers fly open from the impact and scatter even more papers about. Jericho spreads his legs in a wider stance to block the door as the man scrambles to his feet.

New Orleans has more than its share of weirdos, especially in Jericho’s faubourg, but this guy is definitely up there on the freak list. Every visible inch of his skin is tattooed, including over his face and eyelids. His irises are completely white, and he’s clearly on the jittery side of too much sleep deprivation. Furthermore, instead of a rig uniform or neon safety gear, the tattooed man wears a Kevlar vest and snow camouflage-printed cargo pants, both as complex in structure as his steel-toed boots. No brand names. Not cheap.

“You work here?” Jericho asks, keeping his arms up in defense. His lwa splits the air with a pop of electricity. As warning shots go, it’s a bluff, but hopefully they won’t need to improvise further.

Tats sucks in a breath at the sight. “The hell are you?”

“Do you work here,” Jericho repeats, “or not?!”

“I—uh—yeah! Yeah, I do. Was—” Tats glances back toward the computer, where a database flickers across its curved screen. A shipping manifest, as far as Jericho can tell. “Was gonna ask for help. Sendin’ a SOS. That’s it.”

Jericho is prepared to call bullshit on that one.

 _Get the Daywalker_ , he begs of his lwa. _This one’s not a vamp, but he’s up to no good. Could be packing anything._

His lwa clings to him yet. _You think you'll be alright without me?_

 _No_ , he admits, feeling his lungs ice over. _I just gotta stall for as long as I can._

_Brother—_

_You gotta get him now_ , he pleads. _Hear me?_

 _I hear_. With one last static fizzle, Jericho is left alone with Tats.

“Who do you report to?” Jericho asks, keeping one eye on the open doorway. “What’s the evacuation procedure here?”

Tats’ eyes narrow as the glow of Jericho’s serpentine tattoo dims to nothing. He gingerly takes a step forward. “Evacuation? You, uh, you probably know more ‘n I do, man. Just let me do one quick thing on this here computer, and— _hyah!”_

Jericho barely dodges the man’s forward lunge; off-balance, Tats bowls through the doorway, slips on the blood smear, and crashes into the wall of the hallway beyond. _Not a rocket scientist, this guy._ And so Jericho adjusts his goalposts: _stay alive until we know what we’re dealing with._ Or at least until Blade shows up.

Jericho can at least hazard that whatever Tats was up to on the computer is of no small significance. What he had not initially noticed is an overhead rack of servers spanning the full length of the room. All machines are haphazardly wired to the single desktop. _No coincidence that this guy makes for the rig’s database during a fucking vampire strike._

After groaning lowly, Tats hops back onto his feet and makes for Jericho yet again. Jericho ducks and sidesteps away from his punches and thrusting elbows, making sure to keep himself between Tats and the computer.

What also strikes Jericho as odd is the man’s lack of weapons, or, if he does have any, his refusal to use them. It’s a small consolation that Tats’ bared teeth are visibly short and squared. He’s missing a few, now that Jericho’s looking closely as they stare each other down.

“Did you volunteer for trapdoor work?” Jericho asks, swallowing down the image of a highschooler engulfed in flame. His lwa isn’t here to jag him out of his own bad habits, but somebody has to. “Invite ‘em in in exchange for your life, plus whatever’s on here, and screw everybody else on this damn raft?” He’d spit on the bloodied floor if not for his mask. “You a familiar?”

“Fuck you,” Tats snarls before lunging at him again. This time he does connect as Jericho pulls away too late, and he hits hard. Now Jericho is the one slamming into the steel filing cabinets.

 _Yeow_. Jericho shakes his head to clear it of dancing stars. _Too old for this shit, Drumm._ Even if he were the fighting type.

But to Jericho’s surprise, Tats does not immediately rush him while he’s down; instead he returns straight to the desktop and resumes his typing at breakneck speed.

 _Guy’s dedicated, I’ll give him that._ Beyond that, no vampires have dropped in yet to investigate the racket they’ve been making. _Count your blessings, Brother._

Once his vision begins to stabilize, Jericho inhales as deeply as his lungs will allow. Yes, there it is—that sickly odor he'd detected before is stronger than ever in this office. Moreover, it hangs dourly over Tats' hunched back, its form as gray and indistinct as a thundercloud.

It's a lwa, Jericho realizes. Against all odds, it seems he's not the only one here with a shadow.

 _Who's here?_ asks the spirit. It’s slow-moving, this one, aimlessly stumbling about as though in delirium, and its voice sounds like a crow's caw. Poor thing.

 _I am,_ Jericho replies. He clutches his herb-steeped mask closer to his face and breathes out. Indeed, he’s a talker, not a fighter.  _Let’s chat._

“The hell is go—what the—argh!” Tats glances up from the computer and then yelps, flailing backwards until he crumples against the door frame in fright.

While the higher plane’s oversensory mist is all but invisible to Jericho, to the other man he knows he may as well have completely disappeared. A football field’s length now separates their souls, engulfing them in gray half-light and swallowing all sound.

 _What’s happened to you?_ Jericho asks Tats’ shadow as he yanks one of the bottles from his necklace chain. It’s the red one, which he’d filled that morning with Bacardi 151. In his leather pouch is a sachet of freshly-ground black pepper, too, now that he thinks about it.

 _Hurt_ , replies the lwa. It’s slumped to the ground, curling into as much of a fetal position as its smoky form will allow. _Can’t move. Hurt. Hurt._

 _I see you_.  Jericho takes a sip from the tiny bottle before tossing the rest before him. The high-octane droplets fling through the air in smooth, synchronized arcs before pattering against the ground like golden raindrops.

The lwa soaks the rum up, vacuuming the liquid toward itself and absorbing every last drop until its form glows in lush sunrise hues. Next Jericho fishes the pepper packet from his shirt, rips it open and empties its contents before the lwa, whose limbs pop to life with pleasured shuddering.  _That’s good_ , it howls in delight _, that’s real good. O, Brother, could I move, could I dance, would I._

 _Why can’t you dance?_ Jericho rubs his hands together, half-regretting that he’d left his waistcoat on the boat. The spirit world is nothing if not frigid.

 _Ajax_ , mutters the lwa, and at once Tats cries out as though from a sudden burst of pain.

Huh. _Ajax_ sure isn’t a term Jericho’s ever heard a lwa drop, at least not from any he’s met before. He guesses it’s either in a language he doesn’t recognize, or a name. _In’t that a brand of dish detergent?_

 _“_ Drumm! C’you hear me?” Blade’s voice yanks him back onto the lower plane. “Snap out of it!”

Jericho inhales sharply before clambering to his feet. The mists recede as he leans back against the dented cabinets. Blade stands in the doorway with two deep scratches along his jaw and a good coating of blood on his boots, but otherwise little worse for wear.

Mama, is Jericho tired. Hungry, too. But he’s still better off than Tats, whose eyes are glazed over in a stupor as his body remains slumped against the door frame. “Got us a ne'er-do-well. Not a vamp, though. How’s it look upstairs?”

“All clear. Fifteen of ‘em in total. They’d torn through most of the workers already. Few dozen survivors all barricaded themselves in the mess hall on the quarters module. Still not sure how they got here, though.” Blade scrutinizes Tats, checking the back of his neck as well as his forearms. Then he removes his sunglasses and looks again, more closely this time, his expression growing more befuddled with each passing second. “Huh. This guy’s not glyphed.”

That genuinely freaks Jericho out. “If he’s not on the crew and he’s not a familiar, then what the hell’s he doing here?!” The distant God alone knows how deep the vampire illuminati were in it with Roxxon; embedding one of their human slaves in a rig crew would have been child’s play. And as for the familiar—what were a few meager hours spent plotting the deaths of all one’s coworkers? Had to be a standard procedure, in that line of work.

Not once in his life has Jericho ever made sense of the notion of willingly entering into slavery, even and especially for a shot at immortality. _And yet this guy’s not bound to the vamps._ Wild.

Blade cracks his neck. “Must’ve taken quite the baddie to get a human to work with the bloodsuckers.”

“You think they’re on the same side?” Jericho fishes around in his shirt for another bottle, one just for himself this time. God knows he needs it. “He wasn’t just taking advantage of the chaos?”

“Uh-uh. Check it out.” Blade nods to where Jericho now realizes a far newer USB port is affixed to the old desktop. A single neon-yellow flash drive is plugged in. “All the victims the vamps had hit first were infotech crew. They were looking for one of those. System passkeys.” He pulls the drive out and the computer immediately shuts down, all of the servers blinking off in perfect unison; he plugs it back in, and the lights all flip back on. The screen returns right to how they’d left it.

“This whole mess was just to get this guy into the database?” Jericho drinks the entirety of his green bottle’s contents in a single gulp. Tequila, this one, añejo.

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Blade frowns at the screen. “Roxxon execs make a habit of hiding their sensitive documents on smaller rigs like these. Nick only got wind of this hit on accident while we was digging around on a different project.”

Bottle’s empty. Jericho restops it and tucks the necklace back into his shirt. “Management makes a deal with the monsters,” he mutters. “Easy blood in exchange for a big enough diversion from—from whatever it is that’s on here. So nobody on the actual crew notices what’s up, those who’d live to tell anyway.” Wheat and chaff, all into the same furnace. _Good Lord, deliver us._

From his overcoat Blade pulls a very different thumb drive. It’s sleek and dark and definitely from this decade. “Then let’s see what the baddie wants.”

His flash drive begins blinking with blue LED indicators as the databases merge onto it. Jericho tries to make sense of the many documents flickering across the screen, but they’re too fast and too full of jargon.

“Ajax,” Blade murmurs just loudly enough for Jericho to pick up. “So that’s how Nick found out.”

“Yeah?” Jericho glances back towards Tat’s sprawled-out body. “This guy’s got a lwa stalker, a sick one. Mentioned Ajax during our chat when I asked what was wrong with it.”

Blade's eyebrows rise behind his shades. “Did it mention that Ajax was the one who'd contracted him out?”

 _What_. “Nuh-uh. Didn't go into detail—but the guy panicked, just at the sound of the name. Sounded like bad news.”

“Through and through.” Blade folds his arms. “Ajax used to run a mercenary manufacturing operation up in Detroit. He’d pump his men up with custom steroids. Only, this guy—” He kicks Tats’ knee. “He’s got the uniform, but not the muscles. Doesn’t look too much like a pro hitman to me.”

That rings true enough, considering Jericho’s still breathing. “Any specialized forces, then? Hackers? Greasemen?”

“Technically, all of them were specialized—designer mutants, told they’d have their cancer cured.” Blade feigns a gag. “They do—before getting their heads wiped, cryo-packed, then shipped to hell knows where. But you said this guy recognized the name? Wasn’t totally braindead?”

Jericho could use all sorts of words to describe the dude, but _braindead_ doesn’t quite make the list. “Yeah. If his memory’s intact, could be good intel for Nick.”

“Hope so, for his sake.” Blade grins for the first time that day.

The rest of the servers’ contents empty onto Nick’s drive within the next minute, during which Tats begins to stir. His lwa hovers over him, speaking so lowly that even Jericho cannot discern its words. Jericho's lwa keeps a close eye on both of them while clinging to his shoulder.  _Don't you ever tell me to leave again,_ _Brother_.  _Never never never._

 _I owe you_ , Jericho murmurs as they rest their heads together.  _I do._

“That’s all of it.” Blade yanks the sleek drive from the USB dock and shoves it back into his overcoat. “Let’s scram before the feds show up.”

“Right behind you.”

“W—wait—” Tats blearily opens one bloodshot eye. “Take me—with—”

“That’s the plan, buddy.” Blade stoops down to lift Tats over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. To Jericho’s surprise, Tat’s lwa begins to pace in rapid circles as though panicking.

“Take it—out—“ Tats splutters. “Cut it—leave it—here— _please_ —”

“Leave what here?” Jericho asks him, bewildered.

With his dirty fingernails Tats claws at the back of his own left thigh. Blade raises one eyebrow before setting him back onto the floor, face-down. “Drumm, what’s he saying?”

Jericho watches intently as Tat’s lwa gingerly strokes the same spot on his leg. _Cut it out...?_   Then—

“There’s something surgically implanted under his skin.” Jericho pulls the third bottle from his necklace chain, one of clear glass and filled with isopropyl alcohol. “You got a knife on you?”

Blade yanks his overcoat aside to reveal a silver-edged dagger sitting in a leather sheath on his hip. With it he opens a wide slit in Tats’ cargo pants. Sure enough, an archipelago of red suture marks sticks up from the blue-black skin of Tats' leg.

“Hold him down,” Blade instructs Jericho as he cleans the knife with his lighter.

“Hands behind your back.” After emptying his bottle over Tats’ leg, Jericho clamps one hand behind his knee and the other over his crossed wrists. His lwa dives in to reinforce his strength in case Tats tries anything. “Go.”

Tats yelps as Blade cuts a single line over the suture marks. Blade then plucks something minuscule from just within the gash.

“How ‘about that,” Blade mutters after wiping it clean against a stray leaf of paper on the floor. “Shrapnel? No, feels like plastic—”

“They chipped him,” Jericho breathes, astounded. “Like a prisoner.” _He was worse off than a familiar._

But it’s at the sight of the cut in Tats’ thigh—or, rather, where a cut had been seconds before—that Jericho’s jaw drops. By now the wound is all but healed, just a thin red line connecting the dots. Designer steroids, his whole ass.

“Someone was tracking your location?” Blade asks Tats, whose eyes have fluttered closed. “Ajax?”

“Uh-huhn. Leave it. Don’t—don’t let them—urgh—” With that, he passes out.

Blade and Jericho exchange glances. “He had a rough time in the mist,” Jericho laughs apologetically.

After rolling his eyes, Blade lifts Tats back onto his shoulders. “Let’s move.”

The floodlights above sputter on one at a time as they climb down. Just as they return to the boat, the drill shudders back to life with a resounding lurch. Even the stench of blood has begun to subside, unless it’s merely Jericho’s wishful thinking.  _Never thought I’d be so happy to hear a fucking oil rig operating._

Jericho steers them back toward the Sound, away from the growing silhouettes of the approaching Coast Guard ships. By now it’s fully nighttime. Stars glitter dimly overhead and swirl beneath them as the airboat speeds over the shoals. Tats’ lwa settles itself on the starboard edge of the boat, giggling gleefully at the occasional silvery flash of a jumping mullet.

Jericho tries not to gape at the sight. _Sure wish Eli could see this_.

* * *

**BERLIN**

"I apologize for not having called sooner," are Shuri's first words to him, borne on hollow, raspy breaths as though she'd only ceased weeping moments before. "With so much conflicting information, we’ve—it’s taken everything we have to prevent all-out rioting. Some are furious that Zemo still lives, others are celebrating your capture, and the usual suspects are attempting to take advantage of the chaos—but—” She takes a deep breath. “But how have you fared? Is it true that our father’s Birnin will be constructed east of the lake?"

T'Challa sighs and looks over the cluster of feeds before him. While the workdesk in the corvette’s XO loft pales in comparison to the CIC below, his cabin's privacy is far more conducive to personal calls. He also greatly prefers the rich oranges and blues of his cabin's walls to the dark metallic paneling of the hallways beyond; at this point, he’ll accept any small comfort he can find.

"Yes. The Three have concluded that a stronghold there would alleviate the disorganization of the smaller villages in the region, and for once I'm inclined to agree with them. And, per his request, T’Chaka’s life-tree will be planted adjacent to N’Yami’s.” _Practically on the opposite end of the country._ T’Challa need not add that his father's dedicated stronghold would be the first in the easternmost region; to imply that Shuri would know any less of their nation’s geography than he would be little short of insulting.

But it stings, that lurid image of both his parents turned to trees. T’Challa can all too easily envision their spindly branches swaying in the gentle hillcountry breezes, their quartz-pink leaves clouding to deep purple in the dead of cold season, only to be hammered bald by monsoons. No, he would much rather bog his consciousness down with geographic trivia.

“Myself,” he instead continues, “I’m—I’m oscillating.” _To put it lightly._ “Not entirely confident how to report just yet. But, you? …Ramonda?”

"I don't know,” Shuri murmurs. “I don't—I'm not—” Now T’Challa wonders whether uncertainty is worse than clearly-cut bad news. “She still hasn't left her wing. I don't know what to say to her, I don't know what to do—I—" A low growl rumbles through the line. "I should have been there, with you and he. You and I together, we could have stopped—could have saved him somehow, I know it—I _know_ we could have—”

"Shuri. I told myself the same thing." T’Challa walks to the ensuite's shallow basin, runs the tap and splashes water across his face. It cools his skin for only a split-second. Perplexed, he checks the atmospheric controls; no, the thermostat is already several degrees below room temperature. _What is happening to me…?_

“What, that we both could have—?”

"That if I'd done any one thing differently, our father would still be here now. That his death was on me, was the result of my failure to protect him. That I'd killed him myself, for all the good my presence had lent him. But, Shuri?” He slowly exhales, breathing steam for all he can tell. “It's not. His death is no more on my hands than it is yours, nor on Ayo’s or Aneka’s, or upon his own."

"T'Challa…"

"By all means,” he laughs, “keep repeating it, if anger alone is what keeps you from flying apart. But we cannot go back, Shuri. We cannot go back."  

"I know, brother. I do."

As he looks into the slender mirror over the basin, T’Challa wonders now just how akin to preaching his words must have sounded. The silence is thick between them for a minute, heady and uncomfortable, and for not the first nor hundredth time T'Challa wishes that he and Shuri had been born closer together in age. That he could have forged a stronger bond with her, a connection not so diluted with distance and conflicting schedules and face-saving formalities.

T'Chaka had been slow to recover from the untimely loss of T'Challa's mother, refusing to connect romantically for ten somber years after her passing. By the time Shuri had come giggling into the world, T'Challa had passed his thirteenth birthday. Shuri's childhood had thankfully been brighter and more carefree than he had dared to hope; to hear her musical voice so low and blistered with grief now is close to unbearable.

"Will I see you at the planting?" she eventually asks.

 _Why wouldn’t you?_ "Of course," T'Challa snaps, then bites his tongue before softening his voice. "Of course. We're heading back as soon as the true perpetrator has been thoroughly examined."

He forces himself to leave it at that. Oh, would Shuri love to hear about his planned hit on the Americans’ precious Raft. Quite the espionage enthusiast, she, whether by virtue of her upbringing or in spite of it. But T’Challa, more than perhaps anyone else, also knows that his greatest enemies tend to lie within arm’s reach. He has no idea who else may be listening to their present chat.

It’s no small part of why the murder of his father had been such an anomaly, after all: that an outsider had managed it. Far more likely would it have been the result of a coup attempt inside the energy-walls. For all the imperialistic might and greed of the forces beyond Wakanda’s borders, not a fraction are so poised to successfully strike as the contingent of malcontented souls within.

Well, T’Challa reminds himself through another wave of nausea, not a large fraction.

"The true perpetrator," Shuri numbly repeats. "And just how many have we named such so far? One minute we know it's one man, the next we know it's a different man—who is to say we won’t know it's yet another an hour from now?"

T'Challa laughs through his nose. "Because that constant mistrust can only lead to paralysis. Your skepticism is healthy, but we can only do the best we can with the information we have. Life must go on, and if more conflicting evidence appears, then at that point we will adjust our work accordingly."  _Bast willing._

He strips off his sweat-soaked compression shirt and tosses it into the fabric sanitizer. Even now, more beads continue to trickle down his forehead. He can only pray that Zemo’s interrogation chamber will be as cool as Bucky’s had been.

"I understand. I do. Faith, or what have you." Shuri sighs. "But that doesn't mean I don't hate it, that sensation of not knowing. Like something watches me from the shadows, waiting until my back is turned…"

"You are well within your right to loathe uncertainty," he laughs dryly. "Only know that I envy your freedom to do so." Uncertainty is T'Challa's house; doubts, his many plush footstools.

Still, he scowls, it’s hardly as though his practice in managing unknown variables has oft lead to satisfaction. Even now, his tongue is heavy with questions he would already have sprung on his now-closest of kin in another life.

 _This man I nearly hunted to his death has stirred something fantastic within me_ , T’Challa could have reported to her in that faraway otherworld. _Where do we go from here_? he might have posited. _How can I make this work?_

In this life, however, unknowns are best navigated on the side of caution. The less Shuri knows, the safer she’ll be from any potential suspicion regarding his intent to harbor the Winter Soldier. T’Challa makes the executive decision to hold off on that particular bombshell until they’re all safe and sound within his palace’s walls.

After scrubbing and moisturizing himself one more time in the ensuite, he rummages through his suitcase for his lightest button-down and a blazer.

"I believe it," Shuri eventually murmurs. "But watch your back. Please. The world out there is a foul one, altogether too at ease with the slayings of good people like our father. Like yourself." Her voice breaks on that last word.

Three raps ring from his door. “Forgive me,” T’Challa replies, “I must head down to the polizei base for the interrogation. You know you can message me whenever you'd like, Shuri, but I do miss hearing your voice."

"And I yours, brother. Wretched as this whole mess is," and here he hears her sniffle, just once, "I am grateful to learn I'll be seeing you in person. Bast run with you."

It has been too long, T'Challa thinks as their keycall clicks off. "Enter," he calls before walking back into his room. 

Nareema strides in and taps her closed mouth twice.  _Personal, off the record._

T'Challa mutes his keybead mic. "Regarding Zemo? Or something else? I’m due for the pre-questioning brief in under an hour."

“I’m aware. Okoye and Nakia have just returned with the jet to bring you down. Once the interrogation has finished, you three will rendezvous with us in the North Atlantic for the hit. Lynne is to remain on standby until then.” Nareema purses her lips to continue more than once, but her next few words are stilted. "Majesty. May I—ehm—? You see, I fear... that is, I must ask…did you—?"

It's terribly uncharacteristic of her, this broken speech. T'Challa fears for his life. "Did I what, Nareema?"

The starling on Nareema’s shoulder looks ruffled as she gruffly exhales. “Are you aware that we’ve discovered foreign cells in your system? Even though N’Baza found no punctures in the suit?"

 _Foreign cells._ Small wonder he feels feverish. "You found an anomaly in my scan?" As though he’d had time to study medical reports amidst all this—

"Yes. Saliva-borne genetic material, which your immune system is overtaxed with processing.”

“Processing?” T’Challa asks, his heart pounding against his ribs, “or combating?”

“Not the latter. We found a DNA match immediately. It—it's not dangerous, no, he's not carrying anything malign, thank Sobek." Her eyes briefly flicker to the junction of T’Challa’s shoulder and neck.

 _He's…?_   Then— _ah._ "I ordered Barnes to bite," T'Challa replies as he knots his necktie, "when I was out of the suit. I had elected to perform a critical biomechanical procedure on him during the flight over, a painful one on his part. Time was of the essence. I can file a report if need be."

"Hang your report," Nareema replies, her eyes narrowing. "We checked that bruise, and your epidermis was not broken."

_…Oh._

Nareema had not come to ask, T’Challa realizes with a jolt of embarrassment, so much as to merely confirm her own suspicions. Indeed, her eyes now flicker to his quirking mouth.

He is one thousand years old. "Nareema, I can explain." Couldn't he? "He—that is, I was—we had spoken, and—we had—he was quite—" 

“Spare me. I’m sure Tali will be more than happy to discuss your emotional journey once this interrogation is past us." Nonetheless Nareema’s face softens into its most insufferable grin to date. "That said, if you're going to snog an outsider, Majesty, you could at least wait until he's vaccinated."

"Nareema." He is now ten thousand years old, his brittle knees threatening to give out beneath him.

“Amanika and I simply implore you to keep this—whatever it is, keep it discreet." Nareema's eyes flash. "Especially given the current climate surrounding the  _asset's_  reputation. It's a complex one."

Understatement of the millennia. "I'm aware." T'Challa kneads his temples; he never wants to hear the word _asset_ again in his life. "I thank you for your counsel, and for your discretion."

Between Zemo's interrogation and their impending Raft visit, T'Challa does suspect that he had best hold off on delving too deeply into his newfound attraction. A wise person certainly would. A reasonable person, perhaps, one hailing from that same idyllic otherworld where he and Shuri were twins.

Nareema shakes her head. "In any case, I must defer to your judgment. Feel free to view the detailed scan report at your leisure. But—Majesty?"

"Yes?" T’Challa steels himself for another laser beam of a side-eye.

"You absolutely must refrain from imbibing the heart-leaf for another forty-eight hours, minimum,” Nareema orders, “lest the foreign genetic material interfere with your connection to Bast. Your physiology could rupture otherwise.”

 _Fantastic._ But T’Challa knows better than to argue, Bast forbid Okoye or Ayo think to lock him in his cabin in the name of his own safety. “Understood,” he sighs.

“And, one last thing—engaging in adrenaline-boosting activities during this time may also exacerbate your fever.” Nareema turns to leave. "Amanika and I will remain with Barnes to ensure he keeps his tongue to himself for the time being."

“You have my thanks,” he mutters after her retreating footsteps. His door automatically slides shut behind her, trapping him in his own heat.

 _Forty-eight hours_ _._ While his mic is still muted, T'Challa groans.

* * *

**REYKJAVÍC**

Never before has Kia set foot onto foreign soil, much less any so distant as that of Iceland. Ten more steps, and she can cross that item off her list.

It’s remarkably cool here, even within the stagnant front lobby of the Wakandan Embassy. The structure itself had clearly preexisted the Embassy’s lease on the space; it’s all on the surface level, with every room built on the ground floor save for the helipad. Wholly bedecked with broad planes of muted wooden graining and off-white marble, the place reeks of what she suspects outsiders would dub _casual elegance_ , fraught with architectural elements understated in name only.

Just how much chemical processing had those poor trees gone through to end up so gray? How far were these massive slates of marble towed by oversize-load trucks in the name of minimalism? And how many gallons of petrol had gone into their combustion engines? Kia wants nothing more than to leap away from this place, to dive out into the fresh, cool air and leave this ashen monstrosity far behind.

But the Captain is taking his sweet time filling out his mailing slip, so Kia can only irately tap her toes against the too-smooth ground.

 _It’s unbelievably quiet here_ , she messages Tali. _Not one room has music playing!_ If a single employee had so much as plugged in a pair of earbuds, Kia has no doubt she would hear their telltale hum. For however human her own ears may be, ever-aware Bast can listen through them, and art-appreciating Ghekre would revel in her thrumming nerves.

 _Have you considered bathing in the silence?_ is Tali’s immediate reply, naturally. _Submerge yourself, and let it take your mind and soul to places your feet cannot carry you?_

Ugh. Kia sighs in exasperation, then closes her eyes. When was the last time she’d ever steeped in such deathly stillness? Had she, ever?

Yes. She knows.

She’s thirteen years old, and the world outside Wakanda’s energy walls is as fantastical to her as the surface of the moon. She knows it’s real, she’s seen the pictures, she’s watched the videos, but they hold no more weight in her head than the holographic fairy tales she had watched as a little girl.

 _Your aptitude test results are live_ , her mother whispers, her hand shaking so violently that her bracelet’s keybead projects the document across three different walls. The silence is deafening as they both read the report and the attached invitation. _They see you._

Kia is terrified, for a thousand reasons.

Only days before, a massive intel leak from a Russian gulag thought long shut down had taken the Wakandan extranet by storm—hair-raising tales of abducted prisoners forced into brutal working conditions, torture chambers and closet-sized cells. But what remains stuck most vividly in Kia’s head is the footage from the _Красная комната_ , no longer shrouded in myth.

Security cam footage depicts little girls, dozens of them, all even younger than she. They’re trapped in locked rooms with barred windows, handcuffed to their beds by steely-faced matrons. Glassy-eyed and stiff, they sit with ramrod-straight spines in neat rows of metal desks, monotonously repeating lines from a flickering  _Snow White_ projection.

Then they’re attacking one another. Killing one another, in structured fights overseen by the matrons. Killing blindfolded prisoners, with hammers or pistols or their own limbs. They’re abandoned in groups two weeks’ walking distance into the tundra and given only enough food for one to last the trek back. Each group’s sole survivor goes under the knife upon graduation.

In the hour her mother had spent preparing their week’s lunches in the next room over, Kia had witnessed the systematic dismantling of a living, breathing person into a well-oiled murder machine.

WExI and civilian world affairs-enthusiast boards alike could only speculate where the little girls been abducted from, who their families had been, what they each would have been like had their original personalities remained intact. For each _Black Widow_ to blend in anywhere at will, she must first belong nowhere at all. The Red Room makes for an effective transformation, Kia surmises, if nothing else.

But the girls had to have landed in that place _somehow_. Maybe they’d been invited. Maybe they’d received formal letters and invitations to a highly prestigious institution. Maybe they’d unwittingly taken aptitude tests for it, and had passed.

Kia pores over her own test results and formal invitation day and night, night and day. She strains her eyes to pick up on vague wording that could somehow tip off that this innocuous letter and all it stands for are but a one-way drop into oblivion—that something sinister could indeed lurk beneath the skin of Wakanda’s first and last line of defense.

 _Top-of-the-line physical conditioning, intense spiritual enrichment, lifelong education in a supportive communal setting_. _The toughest training for the toughest vocation. The highest privilege afforded to anyone the world over. Yazua,_ it had come to be known. Those who survive the process are sharp and tough as swords, Adored for their tenacity and brilliance.

The forge had come up during interviews with the Adored, of course; the journalists had presumably censored specific locations and family names in the name of security. The Jabari Adored had made the forge sound like a long journey—an extended Pilgrimage, she had claimed, one of the soul. She had made lifelong friendships and learned just as much about herself as she had of Wakanda’s unique political environment. She had maintained contact with her family and had made infrequent trips home. She occasionally felt homesick for the place.

Still, who is to say her reports are the truth? Kia shudders, wondering just what could be the price of such a commitment, if not complete cutoff from one’s individual past and personality.

No one is respected more than the Adored, no one is feared more than the Adored, and no one is better equipped to keep Wakanda and its crown safe than the Adored. They and their gleaming spears grace every public appearance by the crown, to say nothing of the private ones. But where better to hide a brainwashed assassin than in plain sight? How different could Wakanda be from the shadow-drenched USSR?

And just how badly does Kia want to find out?

In any case, the choice is entirely Kia’s to make. The invitation makes it clear that she is well within her right to decline the offer. Other girls have the potential to join the Adored, she knows. Others will have the chance to witness firsthand how the Adored are forged, and to be forged themselves. Others might well learn the truth to undo all truths. Why risk her own skin?

Why not live the rest of her life never knowing? Why not let the Adored and their secrets remain just that, fairy tales and holographs, as alien to her fingertips as moondust?

“I want to try,” Kia tells her mother the next morning, surprised by the quietness of her own trembling voice. Her mother weeps with joy, throwing her arms around her and singing to Ghekre in exultation. Kia hugs back, as tight as she can, and pretends that her own tears eke from happiness as well.

Presently Kia swallows, then refocuses her vision on her surroundings. This Embassy is still far too quiet for her tastes, even as more employees clock in.

 _Want to trade?_ Kia messages to Tali. You _keep an eye on the Captain, and_ I _run a psych analysis of the interrogation transcription?_ As though Tali could magically warp here from Berlin, and vice versa.

 _Ah, yes,_ Tali drawls, _a sound suggestion. Simply present_ your _three degrees and sixteen community-reviewed criminal behavior dissertations to the GSG9, and I’m positive they’ll have you processed within the next ten minutes._

Academics, Kia groans inwardly. _Easy. Here’s my first one—_ she glances about the drafty space. By now a handful of desk jockeys in the know have begun admiring the Captain from behind a low cubicle wall. Yet, had they not been briefed ahead of schedule, Kia suspects they’d pay no more attention to him than they would have any other tourist in a tight underarmor shirt and three days’ growth of beard.

But Rogers pays them no mind, only glancing up from his mail slip to squint at the high picture windows revealing the wide street beyond.

Kia titters. “Your mannerisms will betray you far sooner than your features, Captain.”

“Hm?” Rogers glances her way with a quick smile. “Oh, uh—sorry, I’m almost done. Didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I know you've all got more important things to do than, uh, requisition runs.”

If it’s an attempt to come across as relaxed, then Rogers is a terrible liar. Kia petulantly crosses one leg over the other. “You’ve not been on the lam before?”

Rogers’ pen pauses over the TO: (PLEASE PRINT) line. It’s still blank, whereas he’s already filled in the destination address and zip code. “I—yeah, actually. The whole HYDRA fiasco in 2014—but that was different, I guess.” He grimaces. “Nat was the pro at this sort of thing. She kept us from getting spotted by the tac team they sent, and then Sam—Sam had—he’d let us crash at his…“ His voice breaks into a low whisper. “Sam’s home.”

_Home._

The only better-kept secret than the forge’s legendary training regimen is where exactly said training takes place.

After hopping into the solarcopter they’d sent for her and bidding her mother goodbye _(for the last time?)_ , Kia braces herself for a drop into an underground bunker, one even deeper than the lowest magma-filled trench of Birnin Bashenga, with no windows nor cameras to be found. The Wakandan crown, if nothing else, surely has the foresight to not risk any recording of whatever monstrosities the place may well yet hold.

Even as the pilot takes her upward, through the net of living-tree catwalks and speedlanes, past amphitheaters and art galleries and community fablabs, beyond the stronghold's dew-drenched hanging gardens, up into dazzling unfiltered sunlight, Kia swears it’s only a matter of time until they delve back into the earth once more. She rejects the pilot’s offer of sparkling juice or iced tea and says nothing to her over the duration of the journey. The pilot shrugs and turns the radio to a pop channel, her glistening aqua lips silently rapping in perfect sync with each artist as she steers the chopper.

Outside of its dense surface towns and underground cities and high-walled Birnins, northwestern Wakanda is a gorgeous rippling mountain range coated in deep green acacia trees, whitewoods, crystalwoods and thick shrubs. As they travel southeast, low hills give way to golden grasslands and the steadily contracting swaths of desert as the crown’s terraforming crews continue their work. Kia spots rural hamlets nestled into patches of fallow fields, herding caravans and camps, windfarms and luxury resorts, and soon they begin following the Turkwel River dead east. Barely an hour passes before they reach the emerald-bronze Lake Turkana’s western shoreline. As they pass over the smoking Central Island, Kia tells herself she can see its famed crocodiles sunning themselves if she squints hard enough.

The chopper flies lower to the ground as they reach the eastern desert. Hours pass and Kia swears to herself they’ve been going in circles. _It’s a trick. I’m being abducted._ She’ll never see her mother or her classmates or the nice old vendor from the sweets parlor ever again.

But what Kia eventually sees instead even she cannot believe.

It’s almost anticlimactic, this slowly-approaching villa, until the villa splits into separate rooflines, and the rooflines into acacia-root huts, each one covered in soft sisal-grass mats. Off to one side is a massive herd of humped cattle and camels. It’s as though she’s stepped directly into a VR history museum. _What century is this?_

Then Kia nearly jumps out of her seat as the solarcopter passes through a layer of charged air; the telltale static spark jolts her wrist, and she smells ozone. _This century, then._ High windmill spires are visible now, and lime-hued gleams of holographic status indicator streams flow from one hut’s router pike to the next. Soapstone greentorches burn cleanly throughout the settlement, augmented with constellations of tiny bioluminescent orbs floating high above. Wide tapestries of camel hair and sisal interwoven with jewel-toned juafibers collect the scant sunlight from above while shading the walkways beneath. Kia can’t make sense of it.

 _The forge_   _is just a dumb herding camp?!_

When they finally land a minute later, a middle-aged Oromo woman in ivory-hued robes approaches the solarcopter. She offers her hand to help Kia down, but Kia jumps out unaided. Every last one of her nerves is on edge. It’s staggeringly cool, this predawn breeze, especially after her long hours in the solarcopter's conditioned air. She can hear the humming of generators and vapor-fixers, the mawing of zebu, the bright twang of a lyre, and the hubbub of many voices just beneath that. Her legs are slightly stiff from the long ride, which she’ll have to take into account should she decide to bolt—

“Welcome, Kia,” the woman hums. If Kia’s refusal of her hand has offended her, she makes no show of it. “I am Menen, overseer of _Home_. Today is merely an orientation period for you to grow accustomed to our schedule, so absolutely do not think to concern yourself with chores or tasks. Know that we will not begin your physical training until the start of your second week.” Menen grins, and much to her own chagrin Kia cannot spot a trace of dishonesty in the curve of her lips. “After such a long journey, I assume you won’t mind joining your sisters for our daybreak meal?”

 _Sisters_. Kia swallows. Again, this innocuous word, only as collectivist as her mind will permit it to be. But she keeps her guard up. All of this could be doublespeak. _The food could be drugged._

Still, she wordlessly follows Menen forward, keeping one firm grip on her leather satchel. Inside are her spare keybead, sweets that her mother had painstakingly folded into insupaper, her favorite red khanga, and her two best formal dresses and jewel sets. The invitation had assured her that all uniforms and any other necessities would be provided at _Home_ , where she could also purchase extra accessories to benefit the staff if she so chose. All her books and comics and vids, as well as her photo albums, she has permission to keep stored on her personal keycloud.

But all Kia can think of is that the instant they try to take her satchel away from her, her one physical scrap of evidence that she’d had a family and home outside of this so-called _Home_ , she’ll run like hell and never look back. Better to die in the desert than to live as her nation’s version of a Black Widow.

Up close, _Home_ proves to be minimally different from what Kia had seen from the helicopter: a cluster of powered huts grouped around tridecagonal pavilions, a grazing herd of camels and zebu, the needle-shaped windmills, and three more rainbow-paned solarcopters matching the one by which she’d arrived. Just as its blades had ceased spinning, another in turn had lifted off behind her.

Before her, a crowded dining pavilion proves to be the source of the voices she’d heard before. All sit or lounge around low tables, all femme-presenting, and beyond that their similarities end abruptly.

Two Turkana girls in eggshell-bead necklaces chat at a long table with an Elmolo woman, as do a few pale-eyed Rendille, some in intricately-embroidered wraps, others in loose jumpsuits, and two Mursi—one as young as Kia and one well into her middle-age, judging by her impressively-sized lip disc. Six tweens, four Me’en and two Oromo, watch a one-eighty degree holovid from their synced keybeads, all cackling mirthfully at a slapstick sequence. At another, smaller table sit three ‘Daasanach women, their graying hair styled with matching bronze ornament clips, two listening avidly to the third as she swipes through her keybead’s photobank. Further back, a group of Agĩkũyũ girls even younger than Kia gasp as an elderly Nandi woman dramatically recites _The Girl Who Cut the Hair of the N'jenge_  with her keyhoops projecting the corresponding illustrations _._ Nearby, a Luo woman in yellow deftly plucks a nylon-stringed nyatiti. Delicious aromas waft over from the vaportrapped smokehole of a large hut adjacent to the pavilion—roasting beef, Kia can guess, and collard greens, sizzling onions, and pilau. The leaping flames of tabletop torches further animate the area. Someone’s pet genet strains at its leather leash-harness toward the source of the smoke.

Beneath Kia’s first sweeping glance, the scene is vastly and undeniably different from the cold stillness of the Red Room—no matter how much she refuses to believe it. _Could still be a front_ , she forcefully reminds herself _. Keep both eyes open._

Upon a second look, she finally spots two Jabari women—one middle-aged and one well into her twilight years—engaged in a Bao mancala match. The cratered board is a wooden one rather than a holographic interface; the pearly kete gleam in the torchlight as the women make their captures. It’s a sight that reminds Kia altogether too much of her own mother and grandmother, and for an agonizing moment she cannot see for the stinging of her eyes.

“Don’t hesitate to message me if you have any questions,” Menen’s singsong voice suddenly cuts in. “I would recommend you introduce yourself to your sisters. You can find a basic directory in your keybead core menu.”

Sure enough, Kia discovers the list of names and faces immediately. Each of Wakanda’s peoples has one or more representatives onsite. She sniffles back her fears. “Why are there so many here? I thought there was only one Adored from each of the thirteen.”

“Not all are here to train,” Menen softly laughs. “We all eat together, trainees and faculty and the staff and their families. But, to answer your question, yes; should you elect to continue the training beyond your third year, you will join the line of acolytes for the Jabari Adored. She will maintain her role until she is deemed physically, mentally, or spiritually unfit to work, passes away during her service, or does not personally feel capable of maintaining her duties. At such a time, she will pass her spear to the prime Jabari acolyte, and you will in turn ascend to a higher acolyte ranking.”

“I see.” It’s a straightforward process, then, assuming it’s the truth. But with each passing second, it grows tougher for Kia to believe that all this is merely an elaborate setup to dupe her into a shadowy agency in the vein of the Red Room. And she is admittedly quite hungry after her long flight; even her mouth has begun watering from the fragrant smoke. Lovely pink stripes have begun forming in the glittering purple sky overhead, jeweled fingers unfurling to greet the day. 

Kia takes a deep breath and looks between the many partially-occupied tables. So she’s really expected to sit down and jump into someone else’s conversation? The thought twists her stomach nearly as much as does her fear of being carved into the shape of a Widow.

Menen pats Kia’s shoulder. “It’s natural to be nervous on your first day,” she assures her. “Why not start with greeting those from your own tribe? Or—ha—I doubt they’ll mind unduly if their game’s enticed a spectator.”

Swallowing, Kia nods and strides over to the Bao table. As she approaches, the two women look up. Their smiles are terrifically warm in contrast to how they’d been contorted in fierce concentration. Utterly struck by the sight, Kia bites back tears for the second time that morning.

“Alo alo, young one.” The elder bows her head, and a few of her thick braids flop forward. One of them is cinched with a whitewood ornament identical to the one Kia wears in her own twists. “Hungry?”

Kia nods, not quite ready to speak. Her initial fear and suspicion have not yet completely abated, but instead mix violently in her stomach with her confusion, anxiety, hunger, and, somehow, no small trace of elation. Even if everything goes to hell on day two, day one seems tranquil so far, and she has no earthly idea what to make of that.

“Welcome _Home_ ,” the middle-aged woman chuckles, patting a spot next to her on her bench. “Breakfast should be up in just a few more minutes. I’m M’Taka, prime Jabari acolyte, and this is my mother M’Sia.”

Kia’s jaw drops. “Your mother?” Her voice comes out far higher-pitched than she would normally have liked, but her shock drowns out all other thoughts. “Acolytes are really allowed visitors?”

M’Sia chortles, threatening to fling some of the kete off the board as she raps the table with one fist. “I should hope so! Been here nearly a week now. I make it a habit of popping in a few times a year to bring my baby care packages.”

“All your hair will go gray,” M’Taka whispers to Kia, “long before you stop being your mother’s baby.”

“Correct.” M’Sia winks. “But what do we call you, hm?”

M’Taka surely has access to the same directory as the one Menen had showed Kia, yet she refrains from answering and looks expectantly toward Kia instead. _Huh._ “Oh—Kia. I’m Kia.” After snapping her jaw shut, Kia nods her head and sits down where M’Taka had gestured. If nothing else, she can at least remember her damn manners. “From Beneath Bashenga. Pleased to meet—”

“Ah, then the Pilgrimage is a bit longer for you!” M’Sia exclaims. “The rest of the year I stay with M’Taka’s brothers in Jabarimji—only a ten-minute walk from the Temple of Ghekre Complex, if you can believe it.”

Kia cannot. “That’s so close! It takes us two weeks to make the trip on foot.” Her own family had completed that year’s Pilgrimage over a month before, but Kia swears her feet are still sore from the trek.

“Walking! _Very_ traditional.” M'sia’s eyes gleam. “See, this is exactly why I never once heard her brothers’ complaints about the trip. But you can be well into your middle age, Kia, and still be a brat to your mother. Take heed.”

Kia covers her mouth as she laughs, then winces apologetically. Wasn’t it rude to laugh at someone else’s family woes? “How long have you been in training here?” she asks M’Taka.

M’Taka deftly scoops up two of her mother’s kete. “Longer than you’ve been alive…and since then I’ve lost track! By the time I’m due for the spear, I may need to deflect it for the greater good.”

“Deflect it?” _Does the Jabari Adored literally throw the spear at you?!_

M’Taka blinks. “Ah—that is, I would elect to pass it on to the next acolyte after myself. There she is over there—Oyana! Ay!” M’Taka whistles so loudly that Kia nearly jumps out of her seat.

After making a face, a short Jabari woman, in her early twenties by Kia’s guess, trots over from a table of Umoja-Samburu and Gusii of around the same age. Her feet are bare, but her clusters of crystalwood ankle bracelets make enough of a racket to rival the volume of M’Taka’s whistle. “What?!”

“Come greet the newest trainee! This is Kia. Arrived just now from the Bashenga Rift.”

“Kia!” To Kia’s surprise, Oyana wraps both arms around her and pulls her into the tightest hug of her life. “Kia Kia Kia. KiKi? Kia. Okay, memorized.” When she finally lets go, Kia gasps for breath. “Kia, Kia, Kia. How come you decided to sit with the old people? You try listening to them long enough and you’ll fall asleep and miss breakfast.”

“Rude.” M’Taka flicks a spare kete at Oyana’s forehead without looking up from the Bao board. _Perfect shot,_ Kia can’t help but note.

“But I’m not wrong,” Oyana whispers just loudly enough for Kia to hear. Before she knows it, Kia’s let herself snicker.

Breakfast is a cheerful affair as Kia steadily matches the names with the faces of the trainees, faculty and staff: instructors, shepherds, medics, engineers, mechanics, hairdressers, seamstresses, a handful of sundries peddlers, the two off-duty helicopter pilots, an orthodontist, and the nine full-time gardeners responsible for _Home_ ’s aquaponic gardens and fishtanks. They're all women, from every conceivable corner of Wakanda, of every conceivable faith and creed, now calling the camp _Home_.

This embassy in comparison feels no more Wakandan than the moon itself.

In any case, Kia can nonetheless complete her one ascribed task. _Sam. Samuel Wilson?_   The Falcon? “This package you’re mailing," Kia asks Rogers, "it’s for your spouse?”

“Hm?—oh, uh, no. No, it’s not.” Rogers snaps his jaw shut with a glower. “It’s actually for the person who had him thrown into the place we’re hitting tomorrow.”

 _Well, now._ Kia hops off the counter and circles around to look over the slip. _New York—then—_ “You have a few choice words for Stark, I imagine.” Tali had shown her the full footage of His Majesty’s venture into Siberia; the segments involving Stark— _what’s a good word?_ ‘Unsparing,’ perhaps? _Tali would know…_

“I do, yeah, but those I’m saving for the next time we meet in person. If there is a next time.” Kia can hear the grinding of the Captain’s teeth. “He visited them, saw where they were being kept—for doing _nothing_ wrong—and even told them that he believed our side of the story—” He shakes his head. “And he just left them there to rot.”

Kia watches with a mild wave of amusement as Rogers finally completes the top line of the mail slip—in all-caps, surely lest anyone mistake his N for an R.

“How soon d’you think this’ll make it over?” he asks before stuffing it with one of the two burner phones he’d purchased from the embassy kiosk.

“Let’s find out.” Kia shoots off a quick query. “…Tomorrow afternoon, at the latest. Our New York Embassy can stick a burnable return address on it before dropping it into FedEx.”

“Really?” Rogers’ eyes widen as he seals the package. “Faster than I’d thought.” After handing the package over the airmail counter, he gingerly taps his keybead. Ŵ39 appear in Kia’s account, more than enough to cover processing.

“So you have no issue managing your funds,” Kia giggles, “but you can’t even run one tiny query?”

Rogers bites his lip. “Sorry. Meant to check out the querying system back on the ship, but never really got around to it. Guess now’s a better time than never, huh?”

 _It’s like an afterthought to him._ “Querying is considered the most intuitive of all keybead systems,” Kia murmurs, intrigued. “Your friend took to it immediately!”

“That didn’t surprise me,” Rogers briefly laughs. “Jumping into new tech always was Bucky’s M.O. I just hope he takes a break at some point to get some shut-eye.”

“Wiki spirals do that to people,” Kia admits with a pitying hiss. “But if you’re all set, then let's go! I’ve never been to this country before." _And, given what I’ve seen so far, I’d like to get it over with as soon as possible._ It’s been an hour and she’s already homesick for the damn corvette.

Steve nods, then takes one faltering step toward the glass front doors before freezing in place. “You really think it’s alright…?”

Kia knows it. "Rest assured, Captain, you look no more an Avenger than I do a Kree. In fact, I keep thinking to mistake you for, oh, what is his name… pretty good skateboarder…"

“I’ll have to take your word for that one.” Rogers takes a deep breath, and out they step.

The sky overhead is a ruched sheet of silvery-gray satin. All manner of storefronts line the cobblestone-paved curbs, half surely a homage to architecture of centuries past with the other half in stark lines and high windows. More of that so-called minimalism. Kia can hear fountains from blocks away easily over the low murmuring of the scant crowds. The swooping obelisk of the _Hallgrimskirkja’s_ steely facade seems to loom over them from the far end of Skólavörðustígur, colder than the whipping breeze and far more unwelcoming.

Instead she steers Rogers down the quaint Laugavegur. They’re effectively two tourists out for a morning shopping spree. Even in plainclothes, Kia suspects she attracts far more attention than the Captain ever could. Her crystalwood bangles ring like bells, slicing through the eerie quiet like pastel scythes, and she’d dyed her thigh-length braids in vivid blues and grass greens that shame her bleached surroundings.

Moreover, Kia knows she’s larger, taller, and darker than practically every other person on the street. And—as Tali had long hammered into her head—infinitely more beautiful.

 _Beginning radio silence now,_ Tali messages her. _The interrogation has begun._

Kia forwards the message to Rogers. “His Majesty T’Challa has it streaming on the central broadcasting channel if you wish to watch,” she whispers as they halt for a passing scooter.

“Hm.” Rogers slides his hands down his underarmor pants as though in search of pockets. “Not sure I can stomach listening to him right now. D’you think I’d have a chance to access it later on?”

“Of course. The footage will upload to our public archives as it streams.” Kia can scarcely imagine the university psych courses already preparing to slate Zemo’s as their climactic case study. Frankly, she’d rather not see or hear that monster right now, either.

“You mean anybody in Wakanda can view terrorist interrogations live?” Rogers’ eyes are quite round. “Or just the security team?”

 _What exactly does ‘public’ mean to you, Captain?_   “Everybody,” Kia answers, wholly unable to plug her own gale of dry laughter. “And why wouldn’t they? By attacking the king, by killing him and so many others in the U.N. complex, the criminal caused hurt to all of T’Chaka’s people as well. We all have a right to know who exactly would commit such an atrocity, and what it is he would think to deem a reasonable explanation.” _Not an excuse, but just that—an explanation._ Better than nothing.

 _Not better than if you hadn’t done it._ Monster.

“But it’s just because it’s the U.N. interrogating him, right?” A curious light has appeared in Rogers’ eyes. “Not… every single interrogation?”

 _Ah._   “Yes,” Kia replies slowly, “every single interrogation. There is no more important a relationship than that of the crown and the people. Is transparency not the key to a sturdy relationship?” It’s a cruel question for an American, but Kia does love watching outsiders squirm.

“Well—yeah, I—” Rogers swallows his own weak laughter. “I’m trying to imagine the U.S. doing that. But I can’t. Five minutes leaked of anything that goes down in Guantanamo always gets people in an uproar. And we have the nerve to call it _enhanced interrogation_ instead of torture. I know it’s deliberate, but—still—”

“Torture makes so very little sense from every standpoint I can fathom,” Kia murmurs as they walk, “even a pragmatic one. It’s needlessly cruel, and has no small emotional impact upon the administrator as well.” _Particularly when chemical compounds can loosen tongues more effectively and efficiently._ She cracks her neck. “It’s a worshiper of Moloch that craves blood over justice, too ready to toss bodies into his maw.”

Rogers exhales sharply. “Whoever Moloch is, he’s got plenty of worshipers in the USA. You wouldn’t believe how many people actually defend torture. It’s like they enjoy the violence. Like they take pride in it. Bunch of bullies.”

“I don’t need to believe what I can instead see with my own eyes, Captain,” Kia laughs. “The External Affairs Ministry largely exists for that very purpose, after all.”

“Ext—what, like you spy on us?” Rogers glances to her from the corner of his eye.

“What answer of mine would you prefer?” Kia is this close to pinching the Avenger’s stubbly cheek. “Know only that your binary-based systems are incredibly easy to hack.”

“Well, yeah, but—” Rogers’ neck turns bright pink. “Sorry. Don’t know why I thought a nation like Wakanda would have the internet locked down. It really wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

“Perhaps if our systems were based on the same tech, it would be a feasible course of action.” Kia scrunches her nose at the thought. But the Captain is hardly the first outsider to take Wakanda for a differently-flavored North Korea. “As it were, there’s no sufficient rhyme or reason to attempt an internal lockdown. And I would wish anyone attempting such the absolute best of luck!” _Bast knows they’d need it_.

"But if Wakandan tech renders outside systems easy to hack, then wouldn’t that leave it vulnerable as well?” Rogers looks enthralled. “Has Wakanda's internal intelligence ever been infiltrated?"

Kia snorts. "Please! Our coding is based on a completely different mathematical paradigm, even if we didn’t have techs working around the clock charting all the attempts made to breach. I suppose M’Yra or Hodari could summarize the mechanisms better.”

"They're the Dora Milaje's cybersecurity arm, aren't they?"

"Correct." Hodari had in fact been the prime Umoja-Samburu acolyte when Kia had first arrived _Home,_ not that she'd known it at the time. Many other things had occupied her attention that day.

Starting with cybersecurity.

After breakfast, Kia follows Oyana on a tour of the encampment. “But don’t get too attached to this layout,” Oyana snickers. “It changes every time we move. Anyways, here’s the infotech studio.”

Still clutching her satchel strap for dear life, Kia takes a deep breath and follows Oyana through the hut’s beaded door curtains. As they enter, they pass through yet another layer of charged air, and at once Kia feels gusty pressure cooling her skin.

Inside, an elderly Elmolo woman paces slowly around a low acacia table, at which half a dozen teens are seated. Microengines embedded in the table upwardly project a circular holoscreen, from which the students' personal screens extend like flower petals. It's a setup not altogether different from that of her old school's coding classroom.

But why does the old woman look so familiar? Either that, or Kia is struck by her appearance alone. All manner of cybernetic augmentation glimmers from cracks in the leathery old skin of her face, and one of her eyes is entirely replaced with a multi-lens camera prosthetic. If not for the hydraulic braces at the woman’s hips, knees and ankles, Kia suspects she’d be unable to stand upright.

“Who’s this, now,” the elder croaks, and for a split-second Kia is reminded of the Red Room’s matrons. _Is that what I recognize her from?! Oh, no, no—_ she grits her teeth to dust, glancing about frantically for handcuffs or Soldiers, but Oyana’s hand is firmly clamped on her shoulder. _Trapped—I’m—_

“New trainee, Great One,” Oyana replies. “Kia, allow me the pleasure of introducing to you the Lady Kimoyo Ngai Herself.”

In that instant, Kia does finally recognize her—from a history textbook in her fourth form.  _“No_ ,” she breathes, nearly dropping both her jaw and satchel. _No way. Impossible—_ _“The_ Lady Kimoyo?!”

Oyana cracks up as the old woman—as, against all odds _, the inventor of the keybead_ —folds her ancient arms and tilts her chin up high over her many beaded necklaces. “Expecting someone else, hm?”

“I’d—it’s—” Kia attempts to gather her wits as the seated students giggle. “I’m just—it’s an honor! Everyone I know thinks that you’re, uh, retired!” Now she’s the one putting up a front; to her knowledge, the woman had passed away a decade before. Lady Kimoyo’s life-tree inside Birnin Azzaria is likely taller than she is by now.

 _If this isn’t a lie, then_ —Ghekre, Kia could cry. _The woman who rocketed Wakanda’s software to the caliber of its hardware is alive, and she’s here, and I’m speaking to her, and she’s—_

“Nice try,” Kimoyo cackles. “ _Retired_ , that’s a funny one. Let’s see, now.” Her single eye lights up with the red and orange glow of a multilayered keylense. “Kia Onyango, age thirteen, a sixth-former at Bashenga’te Academy. My, your mother Inira has a gorgeous complexion. Oh, lookie here, your wisdom teeth have already been removed—that’ll save Lisha a few hours’ work, and yourself from a few days of juice diet—”

“How do you know all that,” Kia breathes, taking a step back in shock. _The only thing my public profile shows is my name…!_   Yet no sooner have the words left her mouth than—

“Just so we’re very clear here.” Lady Kimoyo’s lips stretch into a doggish grin. “My true whereabouts don’t leave _Home_ , even if you do.”

 _Lady Kimoyo knows where I live_. It’s the closest _Home_ has come to the Red Room by far, and yet Kia doesn’t know whether to feel more terrified or thrilled. “Understood!”

“Wonderful. Stick around, and we’ll meet again.” Lady Kimoyo cracks her neck and returns to her pacing. “Now, back to your exercises, the rest of you. That algorithm’s not going to parse itself. First to finish with zero errors gets the rest of the morning off.”

Her students gasp and then renew their typing at a more exuberant pace as Oyana leads Kia back outside.

“Still with me?” Oyana asks, squeezing her shoulder. “The Lady’s just fucking with you. Promise. The only thing she likes more than coding is showing off.”

“But she really does know all that stuff,” Kia replies, “doesn’t she? If I do something wrong here, she could track down my family—if I mess up, she—”

“Do what wrong?” Oyana’s brow furrows. “No one wants to track your family down. You’re worried about training already?”

“Yes,” Kia admits, swallowing. “If I don’t fall in line—if I mess up an exercise, or—”

“Fall in line,” Oyana repeats, squinting. “Like… we’re a military academy?”

“Aren’t we?” The Red Room’s vicious sparring bouts play again through Kia’s head on repeat. She watches the life dim and sputter out from the eyes of a girl half her age. “This whole place, it’s to make us the toughest—the strongest—”

“Yep! And that’s what’ll happen, if you keep at it. You’re gonna make mistakes. Everyone does. And there will be times where you’ll want to give up. Where you’ll feel it’s not worth it. And—you know what? For some, it takes years before they realize that maybe they don’t have it in them to be Adored. That it’s just not their path.” Oyana gives her a quick smile. “But no one’s gonna follow you home if that’s what you decide!”

“You mean I could just—just leave? After having seen so much of this place?!” It’s an impossible notion for Kia to fathom.

“What, like you’d give coordinates to opposing militaries?” Oyana chortles. “Tell the world that Lady Kimoyo’s still alive and teaching? Well, first of all, you’d have no evidence. Your keycloud gets scrubbed whenever you leave the encampment. She coded that process herself, and her prime acolyte is just as good. You only leave with what you brought in.”

“But—other things, not just data—like…” Kia chews her tongue in thought. “What if you stayed here for decades, became our Adored’s prime acolyte, learned every last martial art—and then leave? And train an enemy to be just as strong as the Adored? Wouldn’t that be a threat to the crown?”

Oyana flips one of her braids over her shoulder. “Oh, it could. But what kind of person would do that?”

“Anyone,” Kia stammers. “Secret agents—someone could infiltrate—”

“What d’you think that aptitude test was for?”

 _What?_ Kia opens and closes her mouth. It hadn’t been that terribly long of an exam, just an hour of questions regarding her preferences of what had seemed like arbitrary options. _Hippo, panther, rhino, ape, crocodile, impala or leopard? Watching holovids, reading articles, chatting, drawing, jogging, singing, or stickfighting? Favorite drink on a hot day? Least favorite class at school?_

“Lady Kimoyo’s algorithm is too complex even for me to describe,” Oyana laughs, “but it looks at how you’ve responded to your environment, how your community’s raised you, what your base interests and inspirations are—and if your heart’s in the right place.”

Kia’s jaw drops. “You’re saying that she can judge my heart with math? No. Come on.” Oyana has to be joking, or it’s a cruel prank, or—or—

“Are we not all made of math?” Oyana reaches to the rosy sky with both hands. “Heh. No, all I’m saying is that very few people make it here in the first place. And then, even if they _somehow_ fool the algorithm and stay here for decades, the system is closed behind them by someone with more experience, even if it’s the Lady Herself, and then the location of the camp changes within a week. _Home_ continues to exist only in their memories.”

“But—”

“ _But,_ even if one were to somehow establish contact with an insurrectionist in, say, Niganda? Who just—just took you on your word alone, with no proof, of how we strengthen each other?” Oyana grins. “Then they’ve still got to make it past Wakanda’s physical defenses! While using their own technology, which—may I remind you—is centuries behind ours, again, thanks to the Lady. And it’s also assuming that your precious trainee doesn’t break from poor pacing, or give up—”

“Poor pacing? What does that mean?”

“You’ll find out.” Oyana sighs, shaking her head, and throws one arm around Kia’s shoulders as they continue onward. “Suffice it to say, if you want in? All in? It will take decades. The forge is a marathon, not a sprint.”

 _You’re crazy_. “I don’t believe this place,” Kia murmurs under her breath.

Oyana laughs through her nose. “Then don’t worry about it! Here, let’s do something fun. Want to watch a bout?”

 _Fighting._ Kia nods, swallowing back her exasperation. _This could be it._   She'll surely know whether this place is a murderer manufactory by witnessing their physical regimen firsthand.

Within minutes they’ve crossed to another side of the camp, away from the herd and gathering spaces, to where much larger tents stand sparsely between even larger pavilions. At the furthest pavilion, half a dozen older teens stand in a circle around two engaged in moraingy match. With each loud smack of contact, a few of the onlookers whoop or holler or taunt. They look—it looks— _fun—_

One middle-aged woman looks on, occasionally smiling at a smooth hit or giving advice. A coach or trainer, if Kia has to guess. She can always check her directory later. What she does not fail to spot are the two eagle-eyed medics standing just behind her, with an emergency medkit sitting between them. The trainer’s keybead buzzes with an obukano’s syncopated bass twangs and the soft pattering of a djembe.

“Good work, Rashida," she calls. "That’s enough for now. Tamu, take her place. Waseme, switch with Jamani.”

As the teenagers unleash their first careful strikes, Oyana grins. “The two fighting now are like me,” she tells Kia. “Second-tier acolytes. I have a stickfighting session booked with Waseme tomorrow. Wish me luck!”

"Wishing." Kia thinks she can recognize a few of the stances from an article she’d recently read. “This fighting style,” she whispers to Oyana, “it’s from Madagascar! Why should we have to learn outsiders’ techniques?”

“Why wouldn't we?” Oyana laughs again. “You'll understand in time.  _Oof,_  that's gonna smart.”

In time, Kia does come to understand.

“Rest assured, Captain,” she now yawns, “at no point in history has Wakandan intelligence ever been hacked.”

Is it because he’s so famously out of his own time, Kia wonders, that the Captain thinks to even ask such? Or did outsiders truly not _know_ …? It would explain the sheer number of their militaries’ plans to attempt infiltration, she laughs internally, all of them futile. And the famous Captain Rogers has been out of the ice for, what, nearly five years?

That said, she now has an idea. “Think of your own culture's path to victory during both World Wars—you used the language of one of your indigenous peoples, esoteric to the rest of the world, to code your transmissions in a way the Germans could not hope to break."

Sure enough, Rogers lights up at her words. "I actually got to work with a Navajo code-talker on a HYDRA base hit," he replies with a smile, "back in the, uh, forties. Lieutenant Colonel named James Fletcher, but everyone knew him as the Eagle. Great guy—amazing fighter, too. Took out almost as many HYDRA forces as I did. I wasn't awake for D-Day, but without the code-talkers, we would've lost the war." He frowns. "And even since then, the government's still pushed them nearly to extinction."

"Punishing its indigenous peoples is not unique to the States," Kia murmurs, "but the practice has never failed to astound me. It’s a level of greed that seems fantastical, like something only feasible in fiction. And yet there is overwhelming evidence that it endures.” _Even at our very gates._

“To me it’s always looked like you were either the conqueror or the conquered.” Rogers glances her way. “But Wakanda’s neither, isn’t it?”

“That particular binary does not apply to us, yes.” _Though I suppose Canaan and Niganda would beg to differ—_

“What’s it like?” Rogers asks. “Being neutral from it all—never having been invaded?”

Kia folds her arms in thought. _How does one describe an absence of something?_ “Energizing, I suppose. Or, at least a more energized default state than that of one still limping from oppression. Seeing the nightmares fraught upon our neighbors—I’d say it feels like watching a split-screen, where one timeline has diverged.” _What we could have been._

 _What we escaped, by the grace of our combined forethought and luck. By the grace of the desert and Mound._ Kia briefly thanks Bast for that small mercy, no matter how many centuries ago it had been given.

But, Kia ritually wonders, if the timeline hadn’t split…? If they had not been alone in that pool of grace…?

“I’m in the slight minority camp,” she continues, “but I did agree with His Majesty King T’Chaka’s motion to rejoin exchange with the rest of the world. For too long we have stood by in the name of our own security while our neighbors have cried out in pain."

Kia stops in her tracks at her own words; she’d only ever relayed this to Tali and to Oyana and, until now, not one other soul. What is it about Rogers that has her confiding in him so quickly? _Watch yourself_ , she tells herself, for whatever good it will do.

"It’s got to be frustrating, seeing everything that happens around you—but not being allowed to help." Rogers winces. “That’s what got me in trouble with the Accords. I mean—don’t get me wrong—I’m glad the Soldiers weren’t actually reawakened. But, God, if I’d _known_ —”

“Then your fellow fighters would not have been thrown in prison,” Kia finishes for him. “But do not lose heart, Captain. As soon as His Majesty rejoins us with Okoye and Nakia, we will be at full strength once again. And we shall see what exactly this government of yours is keeping out of their own records.”

A monster prison, from what M’Yra had read between the lines in the so-called _Accords_. A gray void in their intelligence, encrypted in a staggeringly more complex manner than the rest of Thaddeus Ross’s files. _Unacceptable._

“I told myself I wouldn’t think about anything else until Sam and the others are freed,” Rogers mutters. “But it’s been over a day since Siberia, and we won’t hit until tomorrow…I don’t know what else to think about. What could happen, if we mess up. What’ll happen if we don’t. Where we’d go afterward.”

“There’s no harm in planning for the future.” Kia grins. “I do imagine that returning to the States is not high on your list of options, however.” The thought of _Captain America_ banned from the United States is unreasonably funny to her, at least for the time being.

“It’s really not,” Rogers laughs under his breath. “But I still have a few contacts outside of the system. People like us, who don’t feel like sitting back and watching threats like HYDRA and AIM and whoever else go unchecked. I know Bucky’s no stranger to traveling around the globe. If anyone else is up for it, then at least some of the Avengers can finally get back to doing what we originally signed on to do.”

 _That’s the spirit._ "There are far worse ways to spend a life," Kia chuckles. "It would be a shame for people such as ourselves to waste our skills by only hiding in one small corner of the world. That was but one of many reasons why I persevered through the Adored training—the chance to travel the world.”

“What was the regimen like?” Rogers’ tone borders upon reverent. _Good._ “Rigorous, I’m assuming.”

“To put it lightly!” Kia tosses her braids over her shoulder. “I cannot go into great detail— _obviously_ —but it calls for the best of the best. Not only by physical prowess, though that is important—but critical thinking, patience, judgment, and inner drive are tempered and tested to the extreme.” Even if she hadn't realized it at the time.

“Wow.” Rogers’ eyes mist ever so slightly. “Is it something that a lot of people can try out for? Or were you appointed…?”

“All femme-identifying Wakandans have the option to take an aptitude test for Adored training at thirteen,” Kia recalls aloud. “We are given the option to quit at any time, and there is no honor lost in having lasted only one month in the regime. To have been invited at all is an immense privilege.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Very few receive invites. On average, I’d guess about one per decade from each tribe.”

Even as the words leave her lips, Kia remembers how her first week spent at _Home_ had been Oyana’s last.

Starting at midmorning is, curiously enough, a recreational hour; Kia continues to shadow Oyana, and thus agrees to join her stretching and meditation session with a handful of others in their teens and early twenties. By the time the sun is high in the air, she’s coated in sweat and thoroughly exhausted. _Doubt they’ll let me sleep all day, though_. Especially on her very first day.

But with the ringing of a low bell, the students separate out by tribe. Kia follows Oyana into one of the Jabari-designated bathing huts. “We bunk with our age groups,” Oyana explains as they walk, “but there’s no point in forcing everyone to bathe in the same place since some use saltwater or oil, but we use fresh water, and we all need to conserve as much vapor as we can. Besides, the Moslims have salat al-zuhr at the same time, so this way’s just more efficien—”

“Prayer is allowed?” Now that the words are out of her mouth, Kia realizes just how ridiculous she sounds. “That is—will we be able to leave for the Pilgrimage next year…?”

“Of course!” M’Taka looks stunned. “Did you think we were trapped here?”

Sure enough, Kia finds _Home_ to be almost completely devoid of locks. She finds no bars in the windows of the bunk tent into which Oyana leads Kia after their showers. No beds are bolted to the floor. No handcuffs. Instead Kia receives her own set of sleeping mats, bedding, and a sterile cosmetic kit from her hut mother Umija.

“We recommend you sleep for four hours during the hottest part of the day,” the old woman informs Kia as her keybead scans Kia for her uniform measurements, “and then four after sundown. Except for when we travel, of course. Now, would you prefer a wrap, skirts, pants, or a jumpsuit? One of each? What colors?”

The rest of the day continues to prove as tranquil as the morning—a history lecture over ugali and tea, a physics exercise inside a laboratory hut, a chore hour Kia spends meeting her instructors, and then another training bout followed by a firelit world affairs seminar and supper. Just before midnight is a longer free period, which Kia spends chatting with her new bunkmates. Once Umija nods off, they all vote to traipse outside, where the air has again grown cool. An adjacent bunk’s occupants invite them to join their lounging in the breezeway between the two huts. The tapestries that had shaded the broad walkways during the day now dimly glow overhead; each hair-thin juafiber strand mimics a shooting star in orange, then indigo, then turquoise.

The other trainees Kia’s age are from all over the country. Some were born and raised in tiny ironworks or windfarm hamlets, one in a floating village atop Lake Turkana, others in cramped crown-funded housing inside the rift cities. Three hail from the capital, Birnin Zana. One had arrived the week prior from a bio-eng commune atop the Mound. None have any substantial complaints as of yet.

“I do miss theater food,” Taptuwei whispers. “Everything here is too healthy. My parents refuse to send me any candy!”

Zakiya nods furiously. “You wouldn’t believe how much ordering a delivery to a _Home_ parcel dropbox costs.”

“Old Kibibi sells chocolate-covered macadamia nuts at her shop,” Nyota cuts in. “You’re too good for those?”

“It’s not the same! D’you have any idea what I would do for a bag of Kona Kona?!”

“I’ll bring some back for you when I return from my Pilgrimage next year,” Kia promises her.

“If you did that for me…” Taptuwei slowly turns her stony gaze toward Kia, her voice reverently low. “I would owe you my _life_.”  

Over the following week, Kia steadily adds more items to her daily schedule. She picks a bunk-cleaning timeslot and volunteers for the animal grooming team because, in her humble opinion, zebu are as cute as they are delicious. Each morning, she continues to meet M’Taka and Oyana for stretching and meditation. Different teachers give each world affairs supper seminar on rotation, but there are only four per week; the moment each lesson concludes, Kia finds herself hungrily anticipating the next one.

Friday evening, _Home_ becomes the site of a wedding: two Nandi women, one a prime acolyte and the other a mechanic, step onto a torchlit dais in matching gowns and cowhide wraps. All of the solarcopters had needed to make multiple trips to bring in both of their massive families. The rest of the encampment is invited to look on as the two women exchange lavish gifts, with a bonfire and dancing to follow.

That afternoon, Kia and a few of her bunkmates had dressed one another’s hair for the occasion, sitting together in a circle mirroring the sun overhead. Even long after Kia’s arms had grown sore, she had persevered, and can now admire her handiwork whenever her bunkmate—an Oromo girl her age named Tali—skips into her line of sight. They sit together to watch the wedding, occasionally linking their little fingers and giggling. Kia finds herself glancing over her shoulder to make contact with Oyana. She silently points to Tali’s elaborate twists— _see, see—_ and Oyana’s smile lights up the night.

“A prime acolyte is allowed to marry?” Kia whispers to Oyana later that night as they watch the last tongues of the bonfire burn low. The practice of the crown selecting a wife from the Adored had been discontinued over a century before, but if one were to pledge their whole life to their service, then where exactly would a spouse fit? She feels silly voicing this question to Oyana, but she’ll lose her mind if it remains unanswered any longer.

“Precious, precocious Kia,” Oyana murmurs, her eyes reflecting the embers' soft oranges and purples. “Whom is it we swear to protect, first and foremost, to the best of our ability?”

Kia had memorized this mantra quickly enough. “O Wakanda, her children and crown.”

“That’s what we protect. Again, I ask you: who?”

It’s at the turn of Kia’s second week that all of the forge is packed onto camel-borne palanquins and three of the four solarcopters. Even the gardens and windmills are entirely modular. They leave the encampment site looking utterly untouched; Kia half-wonders whether she’d merely dreamt having spent a week in that spot.

The last structure to fall is the energy shield, whose tiny generator is strung onto one of Lady Kimoyo’s many necklaces along with her three keybeads. Her palanquin needs no camels nor human bearers, designed instead to cross the desert upon six spindly solar-powered legs.

Oyana gives Kia the now-tightest hug of her life, putting her previous one firmly in second place. “I’ve accepted an internship with the crown’s legislative division,” she whispers against Kia’s temple. “It’s been a long time coming. I’ve prayed, and discussed my thoughts with M’Taka and Menen. Nothing can come close to the amazing people here, and the years I’ve spent in training. But I am grateful the timing has allowed me to meet you!”

They’ve only known each other for a week, so Kia is surprised at the overwhelming wave of sorrow clenching her stomach now. She had attended only one lesson so far on controlling and safely channeling her emotions; it takes everything in her power not to weep openly. And so Kia can only hug Oyana back with as much force as she can muster before Oyana climbs into the fourth solarcopter.

“Besides,” Oyana calls down as the chopper’s blade begin to spin, “you can still message me whenever! We’ll meet again yet, I promise.”

They do meet again, after each yearly Pilgrimage. Through their keychat, Kia and Oyana would pick out one of the 24/7 chai booths near M’Sia’s apartment to meet up. Each time, they sit together through the night in hushed conversation, hands clasped, rising only with the sun.

M’Taka does not have to deflect the spear after all; she is promoted during Kia’s fourth year, leaving _Home_ for her initiation after weeks of meditation and a day of celebration. When Kia hears from her three months later, it’s to learn of M’Sia’s passing.

 _It was peaceful,_ M’Taka writes. _In her sleep. Ghekre sang a lullaby, and she closed her eyes. Bliss._

Oyana insists that she and Kia arrive at the Temple a day early to offer Ghekre a charm inscribed with M’Sia’s name. “Her life was as long as it was rich,” Oyana murmurs over their vidchat, her eyes red-rimmed. “It’s very the least we could do for one of our own.”

“Tribe.” Rogers blinks. “I thought Wakanda was a monarchy.”

Hearing the Captain’s voice yanks Kia back into the present.

 _A common misconception, that one would contradict the other._ “You’re not wrong,” she hums. “But many ethnic groups, and even more tribes, comprise Wakanda. Each of the thirteen have one representative in the Conclave and in the Adored.”

They pass by a bakery and café, where the air grows thick with saccharine smoke. Kia momentarily glances at the trays of elaborately-sculpted sweets behind the tall windows. _Too cute to eat._ Unlike cows.

“So the king is still the executive power,” Rogers replies, slowly nodding. “No committee to wait on. But does anyone else have veto power over him?”

“The Three, in some cases,” Kia replies, weighing now how much information might be too much. Then again, if His Majesty had cleared them for extranet access, then she needn’t refrain from divulging anything a government wiki would contain regardless. “I will say that you’ll find a more thorough answer via web query.”

“Oh, you’re right—sorry, didn’t mean to bug you—”

Kia chuckles. “I won’t be the first to blame you for your curiosity. Why else would we have the net in the first place?”

“Wait,” Rogers replies, “I know this one—advertising?”

They eventually stop at an outdoor gear shop, where Steve ducks in to find new clothing. Kia closely examines the blankets and scarves hanging from the front rack to find that every single one is machine-made. Carbon-copies, the lot of them, with no trace of nuance in the articulation of their stitches. Then she glances over the price tags. _Yuck._

While Rogers looks at shaving kits, Kia checks in on the interrogation. T’Challa appears to be standing behind a one-way mirror as the GSG9 chief speaks to the culprit. A dour skeleton of a man, Zemo. What Kia would give for the chance to spit in his horrible face.

“So,” the chief asks, “how does it feel?” He’s also a scrawny fellow, this one, yet Kia detects no small level of hauteur in his tone as he gazes over T’Challa’s capture. Kia does know the chief’s type. _No sowing, all grazing_. “To spend all that effort, all that time—to see it fail so spectacularly?”

Zemo’s retort is a quiet one. “Did it?”

_Did it?_

“I did it!” Oyana had shouted in their keychat only four days ago. “The Three approved of the promotion, so you are now speaking to King T’Chaka’s senior aide!”

“No way! That’s amazing!” Kia had heard word of the promotion hours before—one of the many benefits of her role, her positioning on the information food chain—but for Oyana’s benefit she whoops exuberantly now. “Congrats, O!”

“And just in time for his trip to beautiful Vienna! Please don’t be jealous, KiKi.”

“Jealous? When I’m right behind you?” Indeed, Kia’s own promotion had come only three months before that, when M’Taka’s successor had declared herself ready for retirement. Spear in hand, Kia had left _Home_ for Birnin Zana, to a grand apartment and a state-of-the-art keybead and a slew of new duties and security procedures. Tali and Hodari had taken her hands during her initiation ceremony. “Just gotta bank up my days off, and we can spend a weekend anywhere you want.”

“Ooh! Sounds like a plan. Tell you what—let me scope out Vienna. If it’s to my liking, then that’ll be vacation destination number one.” Oyana had begun cackling. “Say, did you know that they created a passport for me on paper? It’s so quaint out here.”

“Paper? You’re joking.”

“I’m really not!” Oyana had paused to catch her breath. “Oof, I gotta run. But keep an eye out for me on the live broadcast—my seat’s in the front row, closest to the windows. I’ll have that ridiculous paper passport out on the desk, just so you can see it.”

“If you say so. Talk to you after!”

“Later, KiKi!”

Kia would see that passport, a goofy little thing next to Oyana’s sleek holoscreen. Oyana fiddles with it on the live WKNN coverage of King T’Chaka’s proclamation, making its tiny golden seal flash in the sunlight.

Her seat had indeed been in the front row. Right by the giant windows.

Oyana had done nothing, _nothing_ , to incur Zemo’s wrath. None of his victims had.

And still Kia had found herself at the Temple that same night, blind for her tears, deaf for the ringing in her ears, clutching another whitewood charm. Her hands had shaken too violently to properly inscribe the correct name upon it; a kind priest had wordlessly taken the charm from her, had begun writing the wrong name— _T’Chaka—_ upon it, as he’d surely done for the countless souls in line before her. In that instant Kia had broken down, had shrieked out Oyana’s name, spluttering with her own salt.

Kia supposes Ghekre would have had to wade through the charms, thousands of them, in piles as high as his knees, covering his sensitive ears for all the ghastly wails. One  _Oyana_ in a sea of _T'Chakas_ , and of the recently-dubbed  _Lagos_ _Eleven_ , and the many others lost in the Vienna Blast.

All for what, exactly?

_Did it?_

Kia’s eyes fill. She takes a deep breath, dropping the ugly scarf, and quickly glances to where Rogers had grabbed not one, nor two, but three hiking backpacks, all in different colors. Packs for refugees, for nomads, with no safe haven in sight. No home. _Even the living must suffer your work, monster._

Her hands have gathered into fists, she realizes now. No good.

 _Find your center. Find your center._ If _only_ Tali weren’t engaged in the current state of affairs, Kia laments.

So instead she strides over to where Rogers has begun trying on waterproof jackets. Now that they had gone a whole hour in public without incident, he has begun emanating the same tranquil aura that had first drawn Kia into befriending Tali. Not the overconfident swagger of other States-based military men, but something far more pensive—a suni, perhaps, if one trapped in the flesh of a lion.

“Isn’t that a bit tight?” she brings herself to chuckle as he fastens the thing on. Yes, incredibly tight, across those sculpted abs of his. _And here I am, complaining…_

He grins. “Depends on who you ask.”

Three jackets, ocean blue and rust red and sage green, land in the basket atop three travel-sized mens’ cosmetic kits, three utility knives, and three hiking backpacks in the same colors as the jackets. To Kia’s knowledge, only the Captain and the Winter Soldier had been granted permission aboard the corvette, and four more renegades await them at the Raft. “Out of curiosity,” she asks, “why three sets of everything?”

To her surprise, Rogers bites his lip as though ashamed of the answer. When he does eventually speak, his words waver. “Because—well, it’s kind of a reach, but—just in case—” He swallows. “In case Sam wants to join us. Not sure where we’re going, so might as well be prepared for everything. And, if he decides not to come, things like this are still useful, right? Couldn’t he get good use out of something like this anyways?” He rubs the heels of his hands against his temples. “Am I making any sense?”

 _Some sense._ “Your spouse? The one Stark left in the Raft?” There’s something incredibly heartbreaking in the Captain’s latter sentiment that Kia can’t quite put her finger on. Or can she? “You don’t think he’d want to stay with you?”

Rogers works his jaw. “Plan A is that we can get Sam’s charges dropped, his and the others who’re imprisoned there. It’s bullshit that they have to have their entire lives thrown away just because they wanted to, oh, _stop an imminent threat to global security_ —I shouldn’t have to make that argument in the first place. Those damn Accords that Ross had sprung on Tony were full of pork. He took advantage of Stark’s guilt, took advantage of the political flux right after Lagos, took advantage of everyone’s fear—and had them shoved through the U.N. in no time. Nothing about due process, nothing specific about how violations are met. It’s all garbage. Sam knew it, too. We both refused to sign for the same reason. But now—” He exhales sharply. “Now Sam’s the one suffering for it.”

“At least he’s alive,” Kia mutters, folding her arms. “Count your blessings, Captain.”

Rogers huffs. “Counting. Yeah, you’re right, Sam’s not dead. He’s just, oh, wrongly held in a hidden prison where God knows what Ross’ll do to him, indefinitely, while we’re twiddling our thumbs out here—”

“Rogers.” Kia glances over him. “Per your own report, your man Wilson chose to disregard the Accords. You said yourself that he chose to hide with you and Barnes in Berlin. He chose to make for that jet in Leipzig. Mark my words, we’ll have him out of that damned place as soon as we’re equipped to take it. But in the meantime, you must respect your friend’s decision. I suspect he did not make it lightly.”

 _He’s alive_ , her thirteen-year-old self would have already hollered in the Captain’s reddened face. _Alive. Not dead, not lost to Zemo’s attack. Not reduced to a name on a charm. No memorial needed._ Not yet. _Count your blessings, soldier._

“He—” The Captain’s silence here is worse than the Embassy’s, icy and bitter. “Yeah. Yeah. I know. It’s just—it’s not right.”

Kia lowers her arms. “It’s not.”

As they approach the checkout queue, Kia runs a query for the most recent roster of the _Avengers—_ sure enough, one _Samuel Thomas Wilson_ shows up, a lissome fellow whose sunny demeanor gleams from his heart-shaped face in each portrait and candid shot. _Former pararescue, United States Air Force, FALCON unit; Avengers roster, 2014-2016_. _Currently detained, State Department, U.S.A._ _Notable relationships: Stephen Grant Rogers; Captain, United States Army; Avengers roster, 2012-2016. Partner. Current whereabouts unknown._ Many other Avengers follow him on the list, including two pinned to _Detained_. Following them is an unexpected modicum of gray-market affiliated profiles. But then—

 _Darlene Wilson_ ; _longtime_ _civil rights activist; former NAACP lobbyist. Mother. Current whereabouts unknown._

On a whim, Kia runs a slightly different query. What she finds flings smile across her face.

“Captain…” What in all of creation is this aching in her heart?  _Must mention to Tali_ _later._  “In case it need be said… you’re not alone in your frustration.”

“Hm?”

Kia wordlessly forwards a single hashtag to Rogers’ keyfeed, one that had begun trending only minutes before. Its feed had since amassed several hundred thousand original posts in that time alone. _#WhereIsSamWilson_ , indeed.

In Captain America’s welling eyes and widening smile, Kia can finally see the faintest glimmer of—of— _what’s a good word?_ Tali would know.

But Kia can guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man lots of flashbacks in this chapter, now that I’m rereading. Props if you managed to follow along alright. We’re def gonna hang out with Kia and Jericho again!  
> Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther comics take place in a Wakanda whose geography actually conflicts with that of the MCU’s iteration, so I’ve employing elements from both in this fic. Def check out his comics at all costs.  
> Wakanda’s citizens in this ‘verse (obviously save for the [Jabari](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jabari_Village)) include IRL ethnic groups based in and near Kenya’s Great Rift Valley (wherein Coates’ Wakanda is located) that have generally not received as much attention as the Maasai.  
> Menen is named after the Oromo Empress Consort Menen Asfaw. She patronized several charities and founded the Empress Menen School for Girls (the first boarding and day school expressly for women in Kenya), which partially inspired the Dora Milaje training facility here. We’ll revisit Yazua in an upcoming chapter.  
> Darlene's hashtag is partially inspired by [perspi-looks' brilliant headcanon](http://machinebender.tumblr.com/post/145531755229/whereisfalcon) and its important preceding posts.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day, kids. If you’re single and lonely hit me up and I’ll send you something hella sappy xoxo

* * *

**NEW ORLEANS**

“What in the Lord’s name is going on back here?”

“Joe, you had one job. One.”

“Don’t look at me! You make this much of a racket and then try telling her it’s just—”

“Calm down, Darlene. He ain’t a threat.”

“Says the dude with his whole sword out…”

“Drumm, you’ve been free to go for the past hour.”

“Sure, sure. Follow me, mama. We’ll leave these knuckleheads to it.”

“Don’t touch me—what are y’all doing to him? Why does he look like that?”

“Just asking a few questions. It’s alright, Darlene. Like Blade just said, he’s—”

“Ma’am! C’you help a poor soul out? I don’t know nothing, swear it, I’m just—ack!”

“Gator feed is what he is. You’ve got five seconds to give us a name, or I’ll happily drop you off in the middle of the Pontchartrain.”

“Nick, is that really necessary?”

“Whose singular task was to watch the news with Mrs. Wilson? Be a dear and remind m—”

“Not so fast, freak—”

_“Yeow!”_

“Blade, let go of him!”

“Darlene, please—”

“Just tell them, baby, whatever it is. These men mean business, ‘n you shoulda figured that out by now, you dumb fool, just _tell_ them—”

“Rrgghhnn—alright, alright! Rumlow—the guy who broke loose was called Rumlow!”

_Thump._

“You are kidding me,” Fury groans.

* * *

**NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN**

When he finally pauses his querying long enough to check the time, it’s the date that shocks him.

Two days—days!—had passed as he’d lain here, buried beneath his mountain of questions and the glut of answers to each.

His eyes burn. _Have I not been blinking?_

Probably not. But he's browsed thousands of articles by now, utterly enthralled by Wakanda's tumultuous history following its establishment over the Great Mound. The careful planning of its massive _Birnins_ , the staggeringly complex underground cities beneath each stronghold, and the smaller interstitial communities that had developed organically despite the plans. How the massive alkaline lake bifurcating the nation had been the sight of the earliest known human conflict—three million years ago.

And, sure enough, he’s scoured lists upon lists of infiltration attempts from the outside, by way of land and air and cyberspace. All had failed, every one, many explosively. The nation’s outermost energy shields have fended off everything from rocks to nukes, and that’s just the tip of Wakanda’s defensive iceberg.

Maybe he knows too much.

He might. To his mild surprise, Wakanda’s path to its current greatness was by no means a smooth one. Instead it’s fraught with civil wars. Treaties. Reconstructions. Gods and priests, cults and government-subsidized spiritual ministries, slowly expanding pockets of agnosticism and every conceivable degree of spirituality in between. Relationship-oriented communication paradigms rather than status-bolstering ones, and their subsequent implications on civic policy. An ocean of genders and orientations, untouched by the imperialists’ punishing heteronormativity. Pop culture mainstays and radical subcultures and the unbegotten woes of staunch traditionalists. The prestigious classes of scholars sent abroad to study the outsiders firsthand. Internal public and private university systems working in conjunction with rigorous certification institutes and vast rings of homeschools.

Wholly self-sustaining municipalities. Universal basic income. Crown- and crowd-funded laboratories. Deep space exploration. _Extraterrestrial relations._

Asgardians. Xandarians. Kree. Ronin. Thanos—fucking— _Thanos—_

He knows too much.

It's at this searing thought that he dims the neon of his head-up display, that he yanks the chain from his throat and hurls it atop the backpack Steve had brought him hours ago—no, yesterday. Steve had dropped by yesterday, had wanted to chat, had freaked out that he still hadn’t slept. It had literally been a day since then. God. _God._

He knows far too much.

And if—if someone catches him? Before he can make it to the Arctic?—before he can shut down—?  _Mission report—_

He’s endangered Wakanda, even without assassinating its king.

No. Not an option. He has to go, now. Got to—maybe if he jumps from this ship, when no one's looking, he'll not survive the fall. Not this time.  _Yes._ That's it.

It’s not a plan, not twelve percent of one, but all other options have faded into the white static of his head.

The IVs had come off earlier—hours ago, now that he's thinking—leaving only the EKG clip on his finger. It's a wireless one, and he's been free to move about the med bay, to open the green or orange protein packs or use its adjacent water closet. He would have to guess how many seconds would pass between his exit and the subsequent alert reaching the scientists. (Not many.) Then he'd need to chart a route to an airlock with no map of the ship (he doesn't kid himself that one would be public knowledge, even on the Wakandan extranet) without running into another soul.

But with every passing second, HYDRA's newly-sprouted heads are surely closing in, their slithering tendrils again threatening to ensnare him. He, he's still weakened, he still hasn't slept, even if he had that damn arm on. He’s compromised, physically and otherwise. They could capture him. Could make him talk.

In a spurt of hot panic, he bolts up from the cot, leaving the keybead behind. He's got to do this now. No telling when the hell he can disembark next, not if the Adored truly intend to hit the Raft tonight. There's no better time, and may never be; Nareema's inventorying the storage room and Amanika is off duty. If he's quiet, he has a chance, a slim one. Air vents are out; even if they were large enough to fit him, he can bet they’re studded with sensors. Down the hallway it is.

In three rapid, silent strides he reaches a door. He guesses it’s the right door, even though the floor seems to tilt furiously beneath his feet, the walls are spinning, and his depth perception is _shot_.

No lock, no camera. He can head in the opposite direction from the security portal and look for a vacant deck, or an emergency hatch. So long as he doesn’t run into anybody else. Steve should be upstairs, planning the Raft hit with Commander Okoye. He’d accounted for two of thirteen Adored. What were the odds one would be standing guard outside?

For that matter, had T’Challa returned from the interrogation debriefing yet? He could check, but doubling back for the keybead would cost him precious seconds. No, not worth it.

He rips the EKG clip from his finger. _Now._

Out the door, on tiptoe, breath held. The hall’s vacant, with no footfalls from either direction, no beeping nor conversations. After so long in that whirlwind of text and charts and video and 3D models, the darkness of the hallway soothes his itching eyes.

He cannot pinpoint any particular light source; only the stretches of ivy climbing the wall to his left emit a faint glow, dimly illuminating the path before him. They grow on the same wall panels that had confused him earlier: airwalls, he now knows they’re termed. The vines disguise carbon-fixing lichens and energy-generating chemical processes that likely power the corvette’s noncritical systems.

 _Hatch hatch hatch hatch—_ there. A door in the exterior wall, one just taller than him. After glancing about, he palms the doorjambs. Cold to the touch, no vibrations, no electrical pulsing, for what good either of those indicators may serve for Wakandan tactile-tech. Other objections swirl about in his head in maelstroms matching the floor’s, and it’s all he can do to shush them.

The door is surely an escape portal, and will likely sound an alarm as soon as it’s open—but one second is all he needs.

Out he jumps—

—and lands on a balcony. Likely a staging point for any hull repairs, his head tells him, not that he could imagine anything in creation capable of damaging this ship. Moreover, he’s not alone.

T’Challa whips about to face him, his gleaming eyes awfully round.

Oh, God, he’d nearly—right after—if he’d—If T’Challa had _—_ had _seen_ —had watched him? Had—oh, Christ, he’s sick—he’s— _awful—how could you—_

“Bucky.” T’Challa’s normally velvety voice sounds thin. Sounds starched.

His brain fires off all sorts of warnings— _not right, not right—why—why—_ he’s swimming— “H-hey.” A sharp pain springs up in his throat, an acrid burn that swallows much of his own rusted voice. “Hi. Uh.”

T’Challa’s eyes flicker back and forth, frantically, as though expecting admonishment. Half a cigarette dangles from between two of his knuckles. Trails of fragrant smoke caress his glistening cheekbones before dissipating into the dampened breeze. “You should be asleep.”

 _I should be at the bottom of the ocean._ But, while his path is blocked, he— _Bucky_ , T’Challa had called him Bucky, his name is Bucky—does take a close look at T’Challa.

The rock-steady monarch that had overseen Zemo’s handoff the day before is entirely absent here, having left a quivering skeleton in his shoes. He leans haphazardly against the balcony railing as though unable to stand on his own.

“You alright?” Bucky asks, keeping his grip on the door handle.

T’Challa’s eyes narrow. “Are you?”

Does he have to answer that? _Urgh._ “It’s, uh. Varies.” He swallows. “All over the place.”

“Oscillating.” T’Challa smiles inwardly, as though at a joke he’d made with himself. “Need air?”

With the world now spinning far out of control from beneath his feet, Bucky immediately reaches for the hatch handle. This was a bad idea, a stupid one. “Yeah. That. Only, I didn’t mean to barge in on y—”

“Please stay,” T’Challa cuts in, as close to pleading as Bucky has ever heard him. “I need—” He catches himself. “I could use the company.”

Even Bucky in his state can detect that quiet note of urgency. After pushing the door shut, he slowly approaches T’Challa, keeping his hand anchored on the rail. They’re alone with the sea, two gargoyles awatch for the night oncoming.

It occurs to Bucky now that T’Challa’s tie is undone, his shirt collar loosened, that sweat coats his face despite the chilly air. This close, he can pick up traces of T’Challa’s crisp aftershave, minty and cool, and the familiar tang of his sweat where it’s dampened his shirt. _Is he feverish?_

He does look slightly ill, now that Bucky sees him. Massive bags hang beneath his eyes, and the cigarette illuminates how his hands gently shake. His body is here, but his head seems lightyears away, flung to unnamed galaxies beyond Bucky’s line of sight.

“Where are you?” Bucky asks, his creaking words all but evaporating as soon as they leave his mouth.

T’Challa pulls heavily from the cigarette, and in spite of himself Bucky also takes a deep breath. _Still,_ that bitter smoke seems to order him. _Still._   When T’Challa does finally speak, his voice is low.

“Not quite four years ago. My—King T’Chaka and I were called up to Birnin Bashenga in an emergency. We had detected a radiation spike at a SHIELD base in the Mojave Desert—the home of one Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.”

Bucky recognizes the name, only partly thanks to his recent web foray. “Loki Odinson’s entry point to Midgard.”

“That.” T’Challa takes another drag from the cigarette, and moments later exhales twin jets that curl around his skull. “We had a close-up view of the scene by way of our satellites. Of the dozens who died in the implosion.” He sniffs. “Loki would go on to kill over fifty more people in the two days following.”

“And that’s not even touching the New York Invasion,” Bucky murmurs. He idly wonders where he’d been at the time—whether his handlers had kept his body in the same tank in Siberia or had transported him elsewhere. _What’s the minimum safe distance for hostile first contact?_

For the first 12 hours, half a world away was the WExI consensus. The nearest star system, by the second day. Give or take the threat.

“I asked my father and the Three to authorize myself and half the Adored to hunt Loki down,” T’Challa continues, his eyes glistening. “Did you know that?”

“No.” Bucky can’t imagine a fight strictly between T’Challa and someone with Loki’s supposed might. But, seven on one? A vanguard of Bast's anointed court versus one meager self-proclaimed god? Still, the question remains unanswered. “What happened?”

“They rejected our proposal.” T’Challa’s smile here is bitingly cold. “So we met in secret, the elder Adored and myself. Early that morning, we overrode the security protocols for the armories and hangars. The plan had been to steal away before anyone could react. I was more than prepared to suffer the consequences of our actions upon our return. Upon our success.”

Bucky nods, his heart pounding. He knows who the Three are. He knows they could never have put up a physical fight. Not to a child, much less to a handful of the greatest warriors the world over.

T’Challa closes his eyes, again leaning against the railing. His head tilts so far back that Bucky’s heart skips a beat. The cigarette has by now burned to ash between T'Challa's fingers, not even leaving a smoldering butt. “So imagine our fury when we find every stockpile of heart-shaped herb depleted.”

Bucky’s jaw drops. “How the hell’d they pull that off?”

“They have their ways.” T’Challa kneads his eyelids. “For all our talk of transparency, of the balance of our system… we still find ourselves beholden to the tricks and secrets of the old guard.”

“It’s bullshit.” Bucky’s stomach churns at the notion. Maybe it hits a little too close to home right now, or maybe he’s delirious from the lack of sleep or, most likely, both. “Please don’t tell me you tried to face Loki without Bast.”

T’Challa straightens his back to shoot Bucky a curious glare, at once both incredulous and incensed. “Of course I did.”

Of course he did. “And you weren’t turned inside out.”

“I tried.” T’Challa averts his gaze as he reaches into his pocket for another cigarette. “I did not succeed. My jet was powered down externally before it could take off.” His next inhale is so deep that he coughs, once, twice.

Bucky can guess that, at the time, the Adored had acted logically, given the abrupt change in circumstances. Even now, he can recall well enough his fight against a powered-down T’Challa at the GSG9 base. T’Challa, alone and unaugmented, against an ancient magic-wielder? Even if Bucky’s brain could work right now, he’d still not bother with guessing those odds of success.

“I don’t blame you for resenting them,” he nonetheless admits, “after all that.”

“Resenting them,” T’Challa numbly repeats. “I should have thanked them. I was a stupid little boy, convinced he alone could take down the villain, would only the curmudgeons loosen their leash for once in their _unending_ —” He winces, batting the last dredges of smoke away from his face. “Bast forgive me, that was rude. But you know my point.”

Bucky might. But, more than that, he's unspeakably thankful T'Challa had not rushed to his death all those years ago. “You could say it was thanks to their intervening that you lived long enough to capture Zemo.”

“It was thanks to their intervening I lived long enough to meet you.” Freed from the curtain of smoke, T’Challa’s eyes reflect all too well the shimmering wine-colored sea below and the stunning sky overhead. If Bucky was delirious before, he’s intoxicated now.

It’s at this point that his legs give out. He disguises their weakness, his exhaustion, by slowly lowering himself to the metal-plated flooring. To his own shame he allows himself to smile. He cannot bear how good that last sentence makes him feel.

 _Don’t do this. Don’t get addicted. Don’t be—you’ve done enough harm to him—if he gets too attached—_ he’s got to call it quits now. The last thing Bucky wants is to drag T’Challa down into his sludge, to distract him from his duties. There’s enough going on as is.

But to his surprise, T’Challa follows suit. They face one another, their legs splayed across the narrow balcony’s floor, not quite touching. T’Challa seems more focused now by a tinge, but still he quakes.

“Why there?” Bucky asks. “I mean—why then? Why were you thinking of—?” _Of Loki?_

“The IFID,” T’Challa replies, “Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Siberia... hearing Zemo retell it all, I suppose I was reminded of what could have been.” He shakes his head as his voice grows wet. “What if we had left Nigeria to deal with their own tragedy? Had my father had not scheduled the UN Summit, would someone else’s father have been killed? Would he still be alive today, had the Three stopped him with their tricks?" His eyes glisten. "I'd thought myself above these questions, and still...”

 _Shit_. By no means had Bucky meant to send T'Challa down that horrid train of thought. He feels his throat close up as T'Challa pulls wordlessly from his cigarette.

Yet more pungent than the smoke is the wistfulness on T’Challa’s breath. He may as well have been steeped in it, Bucky thinks, had drunk too heavily from the bottle in too short a time. He reeks of sorrow, where it’s stained his mouth and his fervor. It occurs to Bucky that T’Challa is not young.

King T’Chaka’s murder, beyond its own direct assault on T’Challa’s heart, had compounded every other one of his struggles. Had weakened him on all fronts. Bucky knows firsthand how survivor’s guilt rigs itself with second-guesses.

“You think the two situations have that much in common?” he brings himself to ask. “Are you the same person who wanted to hunt Loki back then?”

“That little boy.” T’Challa's gaze clouds over. “Sometimes, I think not. But more and more I find myself falling into that same ego trap.” He glances toward Bucky, but their eyes do not meet. “I made a slew of inadvisable mistakes these past few days. Skimming that false footage of you after Vienna? Letting you leave that gym? Trusting a Black Widow?” He gives dry laugh. “I was far from ready for the throne then. Who is to say I am different now?”

Bucky considers T’Challa with one itching eye. He can’t imagine a better fit for the role, but he could at least humor him. “If you don’t take the throne,” he finds himself murmuring, “then… what happens?”

This time, T’Challa laughs outright. It’s an ugly bark of a noise, jarring after so many minutes spent in a hush. Bucky watches, mystified, as T'Challa reaches into his pocket for another cigarette. The pack is nearly empty, and Bucky wonders if it had been unopened a half-hour ago.

T’Challa takes a desperate, shuddering huff of smoke before answering. “What indeed. I wouldn’t be the first to crumble under the untimely pressure. I won’t be the last. But trouble has been brewing back home. Suffice it to say.” He takes another, slower drag.

It doesn’t suffice, so Bucky frowns. “You think if you don’t accept the crown, someone worse could.” _Power vacuum._ He knows how they go. He’s created a few.

“Possibly.” T’Challa frowns, again cloaking his own visage in smoke. “Likely.”

“But with all your experience and training, that would be unnecessary. And unprecedented." It’s no lie, no subjective speculation. Bucky’s gone over T’Challa’s staggeringly long CV too many times to count. “So…you take the throne. What’s the worst thing that'll happen?”

T’Challa gives him an even glare, his eyes red-rimmed. “I underestimate our opponents. I overestimate their threat level, reallocating critical resources from needier ends. I fall for a trap, and one or more of the Three are assassinated. I overlook a minor security error, and my office becomes compromised. I promote those few whom I trust only to be accused of nepotism. I collapse beneath the weight of my own stupid mistakes. I… I…” He trails off, cupping his mouth as he pulls from the dying cigarette.

“I believe you.” Bucky feels his stinging eye begin to droop shut against his will. He fights to keep it open. “You don’t trust members of your staff? Your fellow diplomats?”

“It’s not an issue of trust.” T’Challa’s hand muffles his voice. “It is… I lack the—the necessary—” He exhales a dull gray gust. “I’m not enough. And, barring the unprecedented situation you just mentioned… I’m all we have.”

Bucky licks his teeth. This is a song he’s heard once before, if not on so grand a scale. No crashing of kettle drums or braying of brass. But someone had once hummed it, poorly, every other note missing or falling flat.

“Trapped,” he whispers, half to himself. Half not.

T’Challa freezes. The erratic flickering of his gaze hones in on that void between Bucky’s itching eyes. Uncountable minutes seem to pass, with T’Challa’s cigarette burning to nothing in his wavering grip.

Maybe the notion does rings true on some level. Maybe not. Bucky cannot confidently say. What’s the most anyone’s ever asked of him?

Steve, buying him whiskey after whiskey in that Swiss pub. Asking him not to go home, not to decompress after—after his prison stint. Asking him to stay. To fight back, when all he wants to do is lay down and disappear.

But how the hell does that measure against the burden placed now before T’Challa? The life of thankless responsibilities now required of him? He’d at least gone into the war assuming it would end before his death. And had he been wrong?

Not that he should really be comparing. You can’t quantify sacrifice.

Without warning T’Challa doubles forward, his face contorting into a silent scream as his eyes spill over. Bucky freezes in place, his heart pounding into his throat. “T’Challa…?”

“I c—can’t do this,” T’Challa splutters. “Not yet. Not without him. I lack the experience. I’m not st—strong enough. If it’s going to be like this, opposite ends of a spectrum every day—not knowing if I can be trusted to speak, to act rationally—inconsistent—unpredictable—” His mouth twitches with unspoken sentiments. “My people deserve better. Even now, for not yet having returned to them, I’m—I've—“ He clutches at his own throat as the tears return.

It takes everything Bucky has not to interject at every turn— _no, don’t say that, you’re perfect, you’ll be fine, fuck everyone who disagrees—_ but he holds off, squelching the wishes of his own hammering heart. That T’Challa needs to vent is clear enough. Why he’s alone, chain smoking on this balcony instead of speaking with a trusted counselor, not so much.

Bucky is no professional, not at this sort of thing, but to coldly dismiss himself from T’Challa’s anguish is out of the question. What he can do is stay, and listen. He can keep this impromptu vigil. It’s not his first.

He gently brushes one fingertip against T’Challa’s ankle. Hell knows how much he’d wanted the same type of anchor during all his sleepless nights on the run, in the company of naught but his own droning demons. Not pressing, not pushing, just the slightest trace of proof that maybe something else was out there. Someone, even.

So if Bucky’s own eyes spill over, well. There are all kinds of vigils.

“For what it’s worth…” He swallows, wiping his face against his knee. “I’d trust you. With my life.”

T’Challa starts, momentarily breathless. But soon his hand inches its way over to Bucky’s, pinning his fingertip against his skin. In time, he does slump back against the railing, panting, as though spent.

Bucky mirrors him, pressing his back to the ship’s frigid hull. “Still with me?”

“I apologize,” T’Challa begins, “for my—I’m sorry that you have to—that you keep seeing me in this state.” His eyes meet Bucky’s, heavy-lidded and shot with guilt. “It’s inadvisable to, erm. Be seen like this.”

“I’m not sorry.” Bucky works his jaw. “Just wish I knew what to say.”

T’Challa reaches over to squeeze his finger. “What you have said, I do appreciate. Know that.”

Bucky feels his face flush. He feels touched. Moved, in a way that he’d long thought impossible. Unimaginable, really, for the sort of thing into which he’d been brainwashed and bent. This, it’s—it’s too raw, too lovely, too grossly human for one with such an inhumane métier as his. And still he senses it, whatever it is, blistering hot and too present to deny.

…Connection?

God, that is a thing, isn’t it?

A sighing gale of wind seems to blow right through him. _You want to wash away the blood,_ it asks, _don’t you?_

Doesn't he. “Sorry,” Bucky tells the wind, and he means it. The blood on his hand, on his face, all over him, it’s still there—it’s— “Been meaning to. Got distracted.”

The wind becomes smoke, becomes flesh and bone, becomes a familiar face. “Not, erm, that I am one to judge.”

Bucky could tell the sorrow and smoke that he doesn’t mind, really. He curls into a ball, looking with one bleary eye between the rails, out over the red-gold sea. Sky. They’re blending. He’s losing it. “You can judge me,” he replies. “Call it practice. For when you’re king. And, uh. Have to do it on the fly.”

T’Challa breaks down into silent laughter, his shoulders shaking in mirth. Now they’re both lying on the floor, their limbs jumbled tightly together in the enclosed space.

“Judge you. Hm.” T’Challa reaches into his pocket for the cigarette pack, then frowns. “You come across to me as dangerously sleep-deprived. I should reprimand you for disobeying a direct order from an Adored.”

 _Fuck_. “I did that, didn’t I?” Bucky squeezes both his eyes shut and buries his head into the crook of his arm. “Let me try again.”

He need not look up to sense T’Challa scoff. One clammy fingertip prods his ribs. “Not here. Up. Come with me.”

Groaning, Bucky reaches for the top of the railing to pull himself to his feet. If there were anything in his stomach, it’d threaten to come back up right now. There’s sky where there should be sea as the horizon line twists in on itself, but a hand intercepts his, anchoring him.

“He’s with me,” T’Challa murmurs. “Stepped outside for some air. Negative threat level. Stand down.”

Bucky winces as they reenter the corvette. “Did they put out an alert?”

“Nearly.” T’Challa laughs through his nose before summoning an elevator. Bucky doesn’t recognize this one; it must be further aft of the med bay. _Where are we going?_

He’s too tired to voice the question. It’s all he can do to trust T’Challa, to stumble into the elevator after him, to plunge into the unknown. T’Challa shrugs out of his jacket as they ascend, the slightest of smiles gracing his lips. Seconds later, the doors slide open.

At this level the ivy covers every wall as well as the ceiling. The clean, earthy fragrance of their shining leaves nearly overpowers the blood on Bucky’s end and the sweat on T’Challa’s. Scant rays of dying sunlight filter from above through slivers of stained glass.

 _A sanctuary?_   Something about this lush vestibule seems holy to him. Seems sacred, designated for worship alone. But then they enter a grand set of double doors and Bucky sobers right up.

“This is your cabin.” Bucky’s heart skips a beat at the sight of his surroundings, gorgeously patterned wall panels in burnt orange and gold and indigo, sleek hammered-metalloid furnishings and clear wall-mounted screens. More glowing tresses of ivy stretch across the ceiling, perforated with clusters of magenta blossoms. Over a console against the far back wall, the many pieces of the Panther suit float in place. The helmet's eyes dully gleam, taking him in.

He realizes how ridiculous he must look now—no shirt or shoes, his hair matted and greasy, with dried blood still caking most of his skin and scraggly five o'clock shadow. Not in any way appropriate for this beautiful place, much less for the person who truly belongs here. Utterly unsuitable for worship.

“Yes. Slightly more conducive to rest than the medical lab.” T’Challa unbuttons his shirt before tossing it deftly through an open ensuite door. It lands on the rim of a deep basin-shaped device. “So, at risk of sounding _excruciatingly_ forward—” He smartly yanks his belt loose and drops it atop his desk without breaking eye contact. “Join me?”

It takes a good three seconds for Bucky in his sleep-deprived state to process that T’Challa wants to save water.

He all but falls to the floor. _Yes_ is the answer _, yes yes yes please—_

How awful of him. _Remember?_ Remember what Bucky had sworn to himself, however many of those infinitely long hours before? And again, mere minutes ago? Some little thing about not taking this any further than he’d already pushed?

But, some age-old voice rumbles from his core, T’Challa had been the one to ask. _You’ve done nothing. No one’s pushing. It’s his request, not yours. He wants—he’s—_

Oh, this is bad. This is wonderful. Just one more terrible decision in a long line of self-indulgent mistakes, starting with not drowning himself in the Potomac. Because if this—whatever it is—he and T’Challa—if they don’t stop here, then they absolutely will not anytime in the near future. That much Bucky knows. Oh, this is very, very—

“You can say no,” T’Challa adds, removing his undershirt as he turns the corner. The embarrassment on his face is ill-concealed. “Do what you like.”

Well, Bucky thinks as his feet begin to move, that settles it.

He staggers in after T'Challa, tugging his pants down his thighs in a frenzy. Had they always been so damn tight? And he should really find a better place to leave them than in a pile on the floor—

"Just toss them," T'Challa tells him with a giddy smile, nodding to the basin and demonstrating with his slacks. He opens the tall cut-glass shower door and presses one fingertip to the back wall. At once a series of shower sprays activates. "Hot or cool?" he calls over his shoulder after stepping out of his boxers.

"Up to you," Bucky replies, feeling goosebumps raise on his skin as he peels off his shorts. Steam begins to waft over the door. _Hot it is._

The water falls from overhead like rain, and then gushes up from below as Bucky’s world folds in on itself. Midnight tadelakt-coated walls and aqua underglow merge and mesh with the tiny green plants bordering the floor tiles. He watches the rust dissolve away from his knuckles, the five or twenty of them, grateful that the dark flooring camouflages how his blood must look going down that spinning drain.

They take turns lathering one another, whisper-close and heated. Bucky wordlessly explores the stretches of T’Challa’s skin he’d not yet seen, not yet felt. Bumps and scars, more than one tattoo—a careful patina of tiny symbols on his left shoulder blade, reading in vertical rows like text; slit-pupiled eyes on the back of his neck; a hollow diamond on each bicep. Thick scratches along his belly, three of them, and an indentation on his hip about the width of a bullet. One piercing, a steel crossbar through his glans.

As he presses his lips to each mark and abrasion, Bucky’s head buzzes the way it had in the med bay, but he bats his own curiosity away. _Not now_. Later, if ever. Now they unwind. Now they release.

His breath hitches as T’Challa’s hands and mouth map him in turn, along his lacerated spine, following the faint ridges of subdermal wiring up his back and into the missing arm’s sealed dock. He fingers that gnarled ridge of scarification on Bucky’s shoulder, eventually pulling away only to cup his face.

Again T’Challa strokes his thumb against Bucky’s lower lip, until Bucky kisses his fingertip just as he had on the jet. T’Challa’s eyes flicker closed, and he pulls Bucky flush against him. There are eight hands at once holding him in place, slipping down his legs, soaping him with a gauzy cloth. Real hands, finally. _Finally._ Not a dream. He’s tripping, not yet falling, suspended in the void by T’Challa’s hold alone.

Even as Bucky takes hold of the soapy cloth, T’Challa’s movements remain languid, measured. Nothing sudden, save for bitten-back points of breathless laughter as Bucky reaches behind his knees, hollow of his back, the cleft of his ass. Bucky commits each place to memory as he works, savoring T’Challa’s pleasured whimpering beneath his touch.

It’s as much a study as it is an offering of gratitude. T’Challa had inadvertently distracted Bucky from that gnawing urge to unmake himself; the least he can do in return is to enable T’Challa to lose his own mind, to abandon this cruel world for a few sumptuous minutes.

Bucky’s scalp soon feels fresh and light, jarringly pleasant after his days spent on the run. Even his skin shines in a way he’d never achieved on his own. Something in the water, maybe. But maybe not.

Once the rainfall slackens, they stumble together through the glass door to towel dry. When T’Challa reaches for a jar of lotion atop the marble vanity, Bucky holds out his hand. “Let me?”

T’Challa considers him in the ceiling-high mirror and seats himself in the vanity’s swiveling stool. Sparkling rivulets trail down his heaving chest as he raises his chin. His eyes flutter shut, every one of those thick lashes twinkling with minute droplets.

Bucky starts with the nape of T’Challa’s neck, working his coated fingers in slow, winding circles. Crisp mint and sage plume the air, and a few other notes he can’t quite place, sharply contrasting the heat from moments before. He finds he can coax T’Challa into a whisper-soft moan upon each press, his humming so low that Bucky surely senses it through his fingertips rather than his ears.

For the first time since the arm had come off, Bucky genuinely misses that extra set of digits. Ten billion more nerve endings would not even begin to suffice, not for this.

T’Challa’s chest swells beneath his roaming touch, his heart rate soaring. Bucky slowly works his way down, pressing his cheek against T’Challa’s as he kneads his obliques and abdomen, and then kneels before him to reach his legs.

Maybe it’s the combination of Bucky’s exhaustion and the sudden rush of blood to his head, or something else entirely, but the floor’s begun to swim. He’s reeling, doubling over, bowing his head in solemn worship over T’Challa’s thighs _—let me—_ he opens his mouth—

“Shh.” T’Challa intercepts, catching Bucky’s lower lip with one finger. “Next time. I promise.” He rolls his eyes. “Medic’s orders.”

Blushing fiercely, Bucky nods and snaps his mouth shut. Not before kissing that fingertip. It’s a wordless plea for forgiveness. _Stupid—how could you—no one had—he never said—_ but T’Challa cups Bucky’s jaw, stroking his cheek and drawing him back into the present. _It’s alright. He’s alright. Focus._

He scoops up more of the lotion and massages T’Challa’s knees and calves with renewed energy. Next time, he’d said. There it was, that nebulous notion of a future. Like it or not, Bucky had tied himself to it the moment he’d followed T’Challa into this room.

Well, then, so be it. The Arctic wasn’t going anywhere fast. _Later,_ he again incants, _if ever._

T’Challa rubs lotion into his elbows as Bucky gently pats him with another towel. He dimly registers that his own shaggy hair will take far longer to dry. Maybe if he sits under a vent...?

But it’s as T’Challa plucks a leather case from its spot in a silver shaving bowl that he starts. Inside it are a bristle brush, an unmarked green bottle and one straight razor. “For that, you should probably stick with a professional.” It’s not like he can accidentally apply lotion with too much force.

“Afraid you’ll nick me?” T’Challa smirks, flipping the blade open with a flourish.

Bucky registers then that it had been in jest. “Or worse." His woeful dearth of barbering experience notwithstanding, he’s literally seeing quadruple. “I wouldn’t trust me.”

T'Challa looks him over and smiles. “Then switch with me.”

“Wuh—” A dizzying moment later and Bucky’s the one seated on the swiveling stool. T’Challa plants one hand on the crown of his head, splaying his fingers over Bucky’s scalp until he shivers.

“Let me,” T’Challa whispers, balancing the razor on one fingertip. “If it’s alright?”

Bucky has insufficient strength to keep from laughing. A win-win scenario, he can’t help but suspect, whether he comes away from this clean-shaven or with a slit throat, no matter how unintentionally. That old monster of paranoia has not quite yet gone to sleep within him. He suspects it may never.

“Yes. Please.” Bucky slicks his damp hair back as T’Challa whisks shaving cream in the ceramic bowl. He can’t remember the last time he’s looked in a mirror. His flat in Bucharest had lacked one, and no shop window nor puddle ever reflected with such clarity how his face has changed since the Potomac.

Where Bucky knows he used to be gaunt and sallow-skinned, he now has thicker, beef-fed jowls, bronzed from longer and longer forays into sunlight. On the lam, he had shaved himself infrequently, without any costly product, using only the feel of his skin for guidance. Before each of his tank stints, HYDRA had kept his hair long to prevent icicles from forming on and damaging his scalp. As for his face, however, the techs had always sheared him in begrudging, mechanical swipes of electric clippers.

The cool touch of the creamy brush slicking Bucky’s skin now couldn’t be a further experience from that unpleasant string of half-memories. T’Challa keeps his free hand planted on Bucky’s head as he works, and eventually sets the brush down on its sleek wooden handle. Out comes that razor. “Close your eyes.”

Bucky complies. He’s felt the tickle of a knife before, countless times, at his throat and in however many other places. That the familiarity of a blade’s edge is a comforting one would probably merit an ugly discussion somewhere, sometime in the distant future.

But now, with T’Challa holding him in place and tracing that razor in smooth, steady caresses across his skin, over his Adam’s apple and along his jaw, he feels overwhelmingly at peace. Perhaps the pounding of the hot water had dissolved away just enough of that panicked gnawing in the recesses of his brain to silence it for a minute. Even if it’s only temporary, his head feels blissfully light. Feels quiet, magnificently so.

“Almost done.” Bucky opens his eyes to find T’Challa right in front of him, his face inches away, biting his lip in concentration as his strokes grow lighter and quicker. Bucky slowly breathes out as T’Challa rubs a heated towel into his cheeks. After letting it fall onto Bucky’s shoulders, T’Challa spins him around to look in the mirror. “Good enough?”

 _“Bello._ ” Bucky’s been burning to throw the word back at T’Challa since the day they'd met.

“Heh.” T’Challa’s grin drips with satisfaction as he traces Bucky’s clean-cut cheeks with his thumbs. “To think there was a person under all that."

Bucky swallows a laugh as he spins back around. “I thought the only people who used straight razors in this decade were my age.”

T'Challa squints at him. “You spent two days on our extranet and never once hit a dapper lifestyle portal."

"My bad. Next time I promise I'll—" Bucky sucks in a breath as T’Challa brushes his lips against his. It’s a motion so feather-light and brief that for an instant he thinks he’d merely fantasized it. Were only his imagination that good. “What happened to medic’s orders?” he chides.

“Ah. Right.” T’Challa scowls, pulling Bucky to his feet. “Next time.”

And Bucky nearly faceplants. “Shit—” He hadn’t realized just how lightheaded he’d become while seated, and would be on the floor if not for T’Challa’s grip on his arm.

“Here. Two more steps. Here.” The next Bucky knows, T’Challa has pushed him down onto his bed.

Brief disorientation gives way to the succulent coolness of linen sheets, of the blood rushing to his head, and of the mattress compressing beneath T’Challa’s weight as he sinks into it. He barely makes out the silhouette of the Black Panther helmet high above them.

Bucky shifts onto his side and watches T’Challa watching him. His fever looks to have slackened, a rich warmth having taken its place in his eyes and pallor. There it is, the face that had stolen his heart in that airless boxing gym. Oh, if Bucky had  _known_...

"Feeling any better? he asks T'Challa, softly cupping his cheek.

"Much." T'Challa kisses his palm. "Thank you for indulging me."

 _Unreal._   "I was gonna say that."

"Is that so." T'Challa throws one leg and arm over Bucky, pulling him in tight.

Sleep tugs at Bucky's senses, clouding the edges of his peripheral vision. He tries with all his might to stay awake, to memorize the steady rhythm of T'Challa's breathing, the soothing weight of his limbs, the scent of his clean skin. No matter what else may come, he's grateful that he had at least lived this long.  As Bucky buries his face into T'Challa's neck, the thought of waking up next to him floods out all room for anything else.

And so his vision gently fades, ending his vigil at last.

* * *

**ATLANTA**

“So.” Monica clears her throat as T'Challa's status flips to _online_. “You really need to quit accidentally leaving your mic on.”

“Who says it was accidental?" T’Challa's response comes out muffled, as though through fabric.

 _What's that supposed to mean?_   "Are you... changing clothes?"

"Yes."

Now wait just a minute. She has so not spent the last three hours holding her breath for that short and boring of a response. “Yeah? Then what was that like? You nailed him bad a few times earlier—”

“I recall. I was there.”

 _Why are you like this?_ “So he’s just… cool with it? Er, cool with you? He doesn’t flinch at the sight of your helmet?”

“Not overtly. We're on speaking terms. He—” Oh, what Monica would give to hear the unabridged statement. “We need more time to process things, I’m sure.”

Okay, he’d so asked for this one. “Nareema says you already processed his tongue pretty well.”

“And she told me to be discreet—”

“Like I would tell anybody!” Monica swivels toward Janice’s station. Eight different Twitter feeds gleam from her dual screens. “Hey, Jan, make sure not to tell anybody, alright?”

“Hm?” Janice glances up mid-Tweet. “Ooh, my lips are sealed.”

“Lynne, if I find so much as a single anonymous comment on _—_ ”

“There you are,” Okoye calls. Monica can hear the Commander’s velvety contralto both from her own mic and through T’Challa’s. “We’ve all gathered at the bridge.”

 _Showtime._ Monica returns to queuing up the strike briefing documents she had drafted with Hodari and M’Yra. T'Challa and Okoye finally step into her line of sight as they approach the CIC's central console. On its holographic display Monica generates a live architectural model of their target.

The Raft juts unceremoniously from the dark waves beneath without a single dock or boardwalk gracing its exterior. Only a single helipad provides a point of entry, dead in the middle of its unrailed roof. The thing is as carefully designed as it is ugly, Monica laments.

“It’s… elaborate.” Hodari wrinkles her nose as a blueprint takes shape beneath her gesticulating fingertips. “Multiple security checkpoints on every floor, cameras every ten feet, pressure and thumbprint sensors, guards all packing Uzis.”

“Let me worry about the cameras,” Monica snaps. “Everyone else, protect Hodari and M'Yra at all costs."

Okoye nods. "Only once they transfer control of the CCTV banks will we be free to do what we do best. What we cannot afford is hard evidence of Wakandan assistance in this hit.”

“Nonlethal hits,” Nakia adds. “All of you. We may need to force our way through their checkpoints legitimately if hacking proves time-prohibitive.”

“…which it probably won’t, but, sure.” Monica sighs. _Vote of confidence much?_

“How many guards?” Nakia asks, propping her chin on Okoye’s shoulder for a closer look at the console.

“Ten per floor, then twenty on the lowest level.” Hodari splays her fingers to expand the three-dimensional schematic. The corvette’s tightbeam scan relays the precise positions of every guard, every officer, and every prisoner below their feet without a second’s delay. Plus whatever that gruesomely-shaped thing is on the lowest level.

Janice’s spotted it, too. “Holy—what is that?”

“Let’s find out.” Monica pulls up that level’s security logs and does a double-take at the project title.

_Mr. Blue?_

But it’s the scene taking place on the second-lowest that has Rogers visibly unhinged, his handsome face contorted in horrified rage: three men, two in armor, assaulting one in a prisoner’s uniform, a spark plate blinking red from his chest.

“Are they attacking a prisoner?” Janice’s jaw drops. “He’s unarmed!”

Monica realizes she’d subconsciously begun grinding his own teeth at the sight. _Wilson—the Falcon—_

Kia places one hand on Rogers’ shoulder. “Surely they’ll stop whatever they’re doing once we’ve breached.”

Okoye nods. “Ayo, Aneka, guard the ship with his Majesty. Hodari, M'Yra, move out. Everyone else…” She jerks her head toward the armory. “Suit up.”

Monica cracks her knuckles. “Hey, Jan? C’you do me a massive favor and pull up this one account?” She messages Janice her new favorite Twitter handle. “Something tells me we’re gonna have a few files to DM this lady.”

By the time she’s done with him, Monica swears Ross will never sleep again.

* * *

**THE RAFT**

Sam is dead.

He knows he’s dead, because he’s been through hell. His head is spinning, thick with noxious clouds, and everything hurts. Sharp aches like lightning bolts rack his muscles, their thundering much too hard and frequent for him to dream of passing out. Still, he feels anything but alive.

Besides, the booming in his head cannot be thunder, not in real life. First, this place's walls are too thick, and second, he’s been moved away from the general cells nearer to the surface. Far, far away, many levels below the main deck, insulated from weather and his friends’ earshot alike.

No mistaking it, Ross was pissed. He had been, even before Stark had knocked the A out of their AV. Not that it matters, now. Because they’d gotten precisely nothing out of him, nothing to do with Steve or Barnes or a missing jet. Zilch.

But, God, it _hurts._ He grinds his teeth to dust, zeroing in on the thunder, no matter whether it's real. Anything to distract him from his own aching body.

No way it's actually thunder, Sam tells himself, even as the thunder grows louder. As the halogen lights overhead flicker and fizzle. As lightning strikes. …lighting?

“The hell’s going on up there?” one guard asks the other. Guard #2 shrugs.

“How about you two go find out?” Sam leans against his bars and bats his eyelashes at his two personal demons. Glutton for punishment? Maybe. Enthralled by the mere notion of this place coming under sudden attack? Warmer. “Won’t throw any parties while you’re out, promise.”

The static-riddled emergency channel on both guards’ radios cackles to life, compelling Sam to cover his ears. Whatever’s happening on the other end of those radios, there’s a lot of it.

More importantly, Sam feels the spark plate on his chest power down. The status light goes dark and its nearly imperceptible vibrating stops completely. Without another moment’s hesitation, he yanks the thing from its slot in his shirt and drops it into the commode. _Phew_.

Meanwhile, the thunder’s grown even louder. Closer. Faster, hollower. Undeniably gunshots.

Guard #2 nods to his partner and knocks three times on the block’s door. The guards outside slide it open just long enough to let him through.

“Say,” the remaining guard murmurs just loudly enough for Sam to hear, “those Avenger friends of yours ever infiltrated a Level 7 base before?”

 _Took your sweet time, my love_. Sam keeps his poker face up. “How much you wanna bet on it, Jeffrey?”

“Just—just saying. If they’re in, I’m not gonna fight ‘em. I don’t mean any harm. All this, it was nothing personal.” He visibly swallows. “You know that, right?”

“Oh,” Sam replies, “I don’t think I know anything.” Jesus, the bruise behind his left eye stings.

“C’mon,” the guard pleads, “we were just following orders! Weren’t you doing the same, back when you—?”

He’s abruptly cut short as the thick metal door flies off its frame with an ear-splitting _BANG_. Other sounds ring from the space beyond, shouts and alarms and the thudding of metal hitting flesh. But the person who walks through the doorway doesn’t look a whole lot like Steve.

She’s dark-skinned, she’s short, she’s—well, she’s probably a she, if Sam has to make an uneducated guess. He’s never seen her before and he certainly does not know her name. Interwoven gunmetal-hued armor plates cover her from toe to neck, and a sleek diadem of a helmet encircles most of her head.

Through the corner of her eye Door-Smasher glances at the guard, who quite literally cowers against the wall at his back. His gun clatters against the floor. _Not so tough now, huh_. The worst bullies only look big, he knows, because they pick the smallest targets. The starving ones, the ones with their hands tied.

Door-Smasher looks between Sam and the guard before abruptly stomping her heel into the guard’s forehead. The back of his skull hits the wall with a satisfying _crunch_.

By now, Sam’s picked up something in the two smooth shapes cresting up on each side of Door-Smasher’s helmet. They look to be more ornamental than functional, and familiar as well. Awfully familiar.

“The last time I met somebody in a cat costume,” Sam proclaims as Door-Smasher approaches his cell, “we didn’t get on too hot.” The corner of his mouth quirks. “You here to finish what he started?”

The woman gives him a once-over before tapping her helmet. “Tell the captain I’ve found his partner. And that the guy thinks he’s funny.”

Oh. _Oh._

A different sort of thunder booms Sam’s way now. He knows those footfalls. _On your left—_

Down comes his baby, emerging from the cloaking shadows beyond, his eyes glistening and his mouth in a crooked grin. Sam can’t not smile in return. All his aches and pains seem to fall into the background as Steve approaches, even as his grin breaks at the sight of Sam. Of what Sam probably looks like, now. _Them’s the brakes, my love._

“Sorry I’m late,” Steve croaks, reaching through the bars to clasp Sam’s hands. He’s marvelously warm.

Sam interlocks their fingers, squeezing tighter than he ever has in his life. “Quinjet break down?” he asks. _Laugh so you don’t cry, Wilson._ Because he’s about to goddamn cry. Any second now— “Guess it’s a long walk from Siberia.”

“Probably is.” Steve glances about. “No door?”

“Pretty sure the bars retract by way of remote signal,” Sam replies. It’s his best guess, at least. “Did y’all leave anybody on the Raft’s tech team still kicking?”

By now more armor-clad women have filed into the cell block. “Lynne,” one mutters with an inward gaze.

“Doubt it,” Steve chuckles. “We ran into the others first. Wanda’s, uh, letting off some steam.”

 _Good._ “Then let’s hope they didn’t encrypt these bars too heavily.”

Steve glances back to the quartet of warriors. “If all else fails, the Dora Milaje have someone who can hack in. But I think you’ve had to wait long enough.” He shrugs out of his jacket, fixing his eyes on the two middle bars.

Oh, does Sam know that look. “Steve, hold up—”

Steve drops to his knees, planting each hand on the two innermost bars, and pushes. Sam’s jaw drops as Steve’s muscles bulge and strain against his skin, his veins sticking out like blue ropes. “Just a sec.”

“You’re gonna hurt yourself,” Sam protests, for what good he knows it’ll goddamn do. “You know it, Steve. Ross even told us—they’re designed to withstand y—”

“You got captured,” Steve rasps, his face contorting as he pushes, “all for nothing. Siberia was a bust. It was all just—just part of Zemo’s plan, getting Tony to kill Bucky. So I’d take him out in turn.” And here the bars emit a creaking noise. The cat-suited women—Dora Milaje?—gingerly approach, their expressions ranging from skeptical to entertained.

“That was on me,” Sam murmurs, his heart sinking. “Shouldn’t’ve told Tony where you were. He just strode on in and acted like he suddenly believed your story. Made up some crap about a Berlin police repor—”

“It is _not_ on you.” Steve shifts the placement of his hands. Against all odds, the bars have begun to creak. Sam’s heart leaps up in his chest. “Zemo showed us footage of the Winter Soldier killing his parents. Tony _knew_ Buck was goddamn brainwashed at the time, but he snapped. Just like that. Nearly took out both of us, ripped off Bucky’s arm—he’s so lucky I didn’t kill him, Sam, he’s so fucking lucky. He should’ve busted all of you out, if he really believed—”

“And, what, you expected him to take on every guard and defense system here by himself? I’m as pissed at him as you are, but I’m not gonna pretend that would’ve been advisable.” Sam knows he's patronizing. He'll remember for the rest of his days how easily Stark had hacked the Raft's surveillance. Still, Sam grins at the sight before him. “I think I like this version better anyway.”

“Yeah?” Steve casts a quick, pained glance over him before pressing one foot onto the lower bar. “The same version where they tried to beat the truth outta you?”

“Saw that, huh?” Sam sighs, folding his arms. “Can’t say I didn’t call it. And, for the record, none of ‘em hit as hard as that jackass Crossbones—”

He starts as Steve emits a shriek. “Fucking— _disgusting_ , all of them—every single one—burning this place down—ngghh—“

Two of the armored women now join in, one on each side of Steve. It’s under their combined might that the bars lurch and bend away, pushing against the adjacent bars until those curve as well. The woman to Steve’s left, with blue and green braids cascading from her helmet, exerts more strength than the others combined.

Within seconds, the gap is just wide enough for Sam to slip through.

Amid a scattering of whoops and floor-stomping, Steve rolls back onto the floor, looking up at Sam as he pants. “Sorry,” he breathes. “Hacking was going a little slow for me. No offense, Lynne—”

 _“None taken,”_ a tinny voice buzzes from a plummet-shaped charm on Steve’s dogtag chain. _“Just sent word to one Darlene Wilson back in the states, by the way.”_

“Who is that,” Sam groans as he slowly fits each of his limbs through the gap, “and how does she know my momma?”

“Monica Lynne," Steve replies. "She works with T’Challa. Went to prep school with him, right?”

 _Called it._ “I thought I'd smelled a cat.”

 _“I did go to school with him,_ ” the voice answers, "and _finished with the higher GPA. FYI. Oh, and tell Wilson I'm a fan."_

Steve gives that deferential nod of his. “And she’s a fan."

With that, Sam is free. He definitely does not cry a single tear of joy at the sight of an overextended Steve panting so heavily on the floor in front of him. Nor does he offer a hand to pull him up. Instead he plops himself down onto Steve, wasting no time in capturing that pretty mouth he'd so missed.

Sam doesn’t know how many seconds pass as he and Steve melt into one another on the floor. Sight and sound fade away; there’s only the slick heat of Steve’s tongue, the rise and fall of that massive chest beneath his, and the crushing embrace of those huge arms he’d feared he’d never feel again. If this is still hell, then he wants no part of heaven.

He, he’d been through worse than this. Ross and his goons had nothing on watching Riley dissolve into red meat right before his eyes, on following Rhodey’s dead-stick plummeting to the unforgiving earth below. This… this, he can live with, he thinks, feeling Steve’s moaning rumble through his bones.

“Never again,” he hears Steve murmur, his voice high-pitched and wet. “That’s the last time you go to prison for me. Never again—never ever—never should’ve—”

Sam smiles into Steve’s mouth. “You can make it up to me later, baby.” Lord, will he ever.

“I will.” Steve leaves a trail of kisses up his jaw, down his neck. “I will, I will, I will.”

It’s only with sudden movement in his peripheral vision that Sam thinks to look up.

The armored women have gathered together, all facing away from himself and Steve. One at the front holds up her spear high. A tiny light blinks from a bronze ornament tied halfway up its length. The women behind her each throw up different hand signs, none of which Sam can recognize. _“Jela kutoroka!”_ they exclaim in unison.

 _Prison break_ , Steve silently mouths. “Did… they just take a selfie? With us in the background?”

“Ellen selfie,” Sam hears himself reply. “Technically. Hey, where’re they running off to?”

“Exploring.” Steve bites back a grin. “I had to pitch coming out here to get all of you in a way that would benefit WEx—I mean, Wakanda's external intelligence division.”

“Self-serving pragmatist Captain America. Now I’ve seen everything.” Sam kisses corner of his mouth. “Let's beat it, Running Man.”

At once Steve leaps to his feet, lifting Sam up like they're newlyweds. "Let's."

* * *

It’s only because Sam adamantly refuses to be carried out bridal style that they slowly walk back up to the surface level, with Sam instead leaning on Steve’s shoulder for support.

It’s also entirely due to Sam’s inconceivable good will that Steve doesn’t throttle every semiconscious guard they come across.

And it’s purely because of Scott Lang’s sudden appearance that Steve doesn’t impulsively shut off all climate controls, leaving the guards below to their just ends.

“Hey, man, got your bird costume—what the _hell_ —?” Scott nearly drops the FALCON jetpack at the sight of Sam’s bruising. “Cap, hold this stuff, I’m gonna—“

“You are not,” Sam orders. “Where're Clint and Wanda at?”

“Back here!” Wanda’s voice. “I found some people.”

Chante’s team awaits them, confirming the north wing to have been swept. Steve lets out a shallow laugh at the sight of the ten soldiers Wanda has pinned to a wall with a biotic field. Their guns litter the floor, all bent into complete loops.

“What should I do with them? Oh, no, no— _Sam_ —” Wanda snarls at the sight of Sam’s face, then lunges forward to press the squadron of guards even more firmly against the wall. “I _knew_ it, I _knew_ that’s why they were moving you—!”

Sam laughs through his nose. “Drop them, Wanda.”

“Hmph.” Drop they do, in a slapstick fashion that has Kia chortling. 

“Tali’s squad should be back from the lowest floor any minute,” Hodari announces from where she’d set up camp in the main security booth. "Nika?"

Amanika’s team bounds up from a far stairwell. “South wing secured. All cameras and databanks scrubbed. And we snagged a souvenir.” She unlatches the large trunk they’d brought up with them, revealing the glinting armor pieces and busted arc reactor within.

“Vanko's getup, yeah?” Sam murmurs. "I forgot about that dude."

So had Steve. “Guess they moved everything with Level 7 clearance here after Nat’s intel leak.” Going by the stripped state of the whips, either SHIELD or the State Department had tried to reverse-engineer Vanko’s proprietary power-discharging mechanism. See, Steve reminds that Tony-shaped specter in the back of his head, he _does so_ do the reading—

“West wing secured,” Okoye calls as she and her teammates return, each carrying oversized beam canons and missiles. “Found weaponry they’d been testing.”

 _Phase Two_. Steve feels his stomach churn. “They’re all based on HYDRA tech,” he quickly replies inline. “Dunno why I trusted Fury to destroy it all.”

Sam snorts. “I second that, Cap. We both know him better than that.”

“Tesseract derivatives.” Hodari glances over one missile over and shrugs. “Nowhere near state of the art, but we could repurpose the arc chips. Tali, report.”

“Mostly labs and server banks down here,” Tali replies inline. In their mission keyfeed, she highlights the level on their live map. It’s target-shaped, with a circular hallway separating the outer ring of labs from the bullseye—one massive room. “We skimmed the research data—nothing but rudimentary Einstein-Rosen bridge footprints—but it could be useful later. What we’re not too sure about is this innermost chamber.”

“Uploading its security feeds now,” Lynne replies. “Standard outsider equipment for cryo freeze…” She inhales sharply. “The thing inside is alive?”

“And big,” a woman sharing Lynne's mic adds. “And not cute.”

 _Bruce?_   Truth be told, Steve hasn’t even thought of the man since Ross had dropped his name back in their little conference. “It could be one of ours,” he replies, thinking of Banner and Ross’s history. _Could explain why we haven’t heard from him since—_

“Say,” Scott asks as he hands Wanda a clear Haz-Mat bag containing her jewelry, “where’d Clint run off to?”

Hodari exchanges glances with M'Yra. “I daresay we were too preoccupied to babysit a grown man.”

“He went after Ross,” Lynne cheerfully translates. “Take photos!”

“Ha.” Sam sighs against Steve’s shoulder. “Might as well break ‘em up, Cap.”

“Are you sure?” Steve pointedly slows his walking as Tali’s squad files back in. “I think we should let you rest for a bit, first.”

“Steve...”

“Just saying. That was a lot of stair-climbing just now, and you’ve been through the grinder already—”

“Stephen.”

“I’m sure Clint’s behaving himself. It only took seven of us to keep him from shooting Loki’s eyes out after New Y—”

“Stephen Grant Rogers, _go collect your teammate.”_

Steve plants one gentle kiss on Sam’s cheek. “If you insis— _ow!”_ He covers his ears as a warning siren blasts to life. _The hell—?_

Emergency lights flash from every doorway. Hodari smashes her fist into the security chamber’s override button. At last, the screeching halts. “Lynne,” she hisses, “what was that?!”

“Looking up whatever _Code Blue_ is,” Monica replies. “Something’s wrong here. I’d thought they’d captured the Hulk, but—this name—Sterns?”

Steve and Sam exchange glances. _“Shit_. _”_

“We need to not be here,” Sam shouts to Wanda. “Tic-Tac! Let’s move!”

At once the floor begins to quake beneath their feet, bringing to mind every hair-raising tale of Samuel Sterns’ misfortune that Nat had ever let slip. What he’d done, and what had been done to him. And that had been, what, five years ago?  _Shooting him once in the leg might not do the trick this time around._

“Get onto the corvette,” Steve tells Sam, beckoning for Lang to shoulder him. “Buck’s in the med bay, he’ll fill you in on everything if I don’t—“ He cuts himself short. “Don’t wait for me.” He pulls Sam into a furious kiss. “Never again,” he repeats against Sam's lips.

“Steve—“ Sam’s face contorts into horror. “No. I’m coming with you.”

“You can barely stand,” Wanda scolds. “Steve, I can—”

“You and Lang need to help defend the ship in case Sterns makes it up to the helipad before we do,” Steve cuts in. “That thing down there dwarfs the Hulk. It’s stronger, tougher, and won’t have Banner’s level of control. Maybe it can’t damage the ship. Our job’s to not find out the hard way that it can.”

“We’re shoving off the minute you two make it outside,” Okoye calls as Hodari powers down the security booth. “Ladies, move out.”

“Fine.” Sam scowls but begrudgingly leans onto Lang. “Don’t let that thing eat Clint.”

They break. The Dora Milaje escort the renegade Avengers up to the helipad along with their new finds. Steve sprints down the central staircase, flinching with every noise coming up through the floor, every rumble, every gunshot, every roar.

“Clint!” He vaults over unconscious and barely-stirring guards, glancing into every room he passes. This floor looks like an officer’s deck, alright. Surely Ross has to be—

“I can’t believe you’re searching the old-fashioned way,” Monica Lynne grumbles in his ear. “I have eyes on the whole place, or did you forget?”

“I did forget,” Steve admits, double-checking his HUD readigs. “But I can’t thank you enough for everything, Lynne. And I look forward to meeting you after all this is over.”

“Likewise. Your friend is inside Ross’s office—around that corner, two doors down. I already lowered the security gate. But that thing they turned Sterns into? It’s a fucking behemoth, it’s awake, and it’s pissed. You have a narrow window, but— _shit_ , it’s fast—”

“If Sterns starts moving upstairs, could you give me a heads up?”

“If he starts punching through the ceiling, I’ll—heads up! Heads up! It’s—” Lynne hisses. “Two floors below you, now—just knocked out the power on the lowest levels—”

Steve reaches the door Lynne had pinned. “Are the guards fighting back?”

“That thing is crushing them,” she croaks. “Get out of there, Cap.”

“Copy that.” He kicks the door open.

Ross's body is sprawled out on the floor, every visible inch of his skin purpled and swollen. Clint stands over him, dusting off his hands. “Hey hey—”

“We need to move. Now.” Steve does a double-take at the lone computer. Under _CODE BLUE INITIATED_ is a communication log. He had expected Ross to have called for military backup by now, but the first number logged isn’t an emergency line. Rather, it’s one Steve recognizes.

And it had gone to voicemail eight seconds in.

Steve’s new burner phone buzzes in his pocket. As Clint gives Ross one last stomp to the gut, Steve flips the thing open and looks at the sole message, a— _whaddya call it—_ a winky-face emoji. Olive branch.

 _Alright._ Steve shoves the phone back into his pocket. “C’mon, Legolas.”

“The heck is all this racket?” Clint asks as they race up the stairs. The trace bursts of gunfire immediately halt with a violent pounding that Steve can feel in his feet. “Kinda reminds me of when Loki had us hit Fury’s old helicarrier. When, uh, you know, you all were on it.” He feigns a gag. “That’s… not Banner down there, is it.”

Steve inhales sharply as the lights fizzle out, abruptly plunging them into complete darkness. “It’s really not.” He grabs Clint’s hand and follows Lynne’s navpoints. “This way.”

“Cap, watch out!” Lynne shrieks. “It must be able to hear you two running!”

It’s just as they sprint out into the starlit night that the thundering around them grows much, much louder, culminating in a _BOOM_  that sends Steve and Clint flying forward. 

After scrambling to his feet, Steve whips about to find the ugliest botch of a Hulk he’d seen yet. The behemoth stands at twice Banner's height, dripping with drool and utterly wild-eyed. It had indeed bust straight through the ceiling by the look of the dust swirling behind it. Ross's lone helicopter tips over and careens into the roof's widening hole, its blades snapping on impact.

“Tell them to take off!” Clint hollers, waving to the corvette. “If that thing jumps onto the ship, it could take the whole thing down!”

“He’s right,” Steve shouts into his keyfeed. “Who has the bridge? Take off now!”

“I do.” T’Challa’s voice, just audible over Sterns' thundering footsteps. “Extending a line. Get on!” Sure enough, a braided metal rope swings out from the corvette’s closest hatch as the ship begins drifting away.

Steve pushes Clint toward it as the behemoth leers at him. He knows that look. “I’m right behind you.”

“Alright.” Clint jumps onto the rope, now a good few meters off the edge of the Raft. Up he climbs.

But the behemoth picks that instant to howl, pummeling Steve with a battering ram of noise. He feels his eardrums give out as the monster dashes forward. _Too fast—no good—_ “Retract the rope!” he shouts, bolting away from the corvette to lure the behemoth after him. “Get out of here, now!”

“And leave you behind?” T’Challa inhales sharply. “Confirm?”

“Do it.” He never says those words without truly, one-hundred percent meaning them.

 _“STEVE—_ ”Sam’s voice bellows through Kia’s keybead, sounding dreadfully wet. Steve feels his eyes sting.  _"DON'T—"_

"Sorry, partner." _Came up hard. You know how it goes._ "Can't risk it." Can't, and won't.

Steve narrowly dodges each of the behemoth’s vicious lunges and blows, missing them by a hair each time. Within seconds, the corvette is out of range, per his own keybead. The thing's invisible, after all. But what matters is that Sterns no longer poses a threat to anyone aboard it. 

 _Came up hard. Had to fight._ Sam does know how the lyrics go.

“Alright, pal,” Steve huffs, cracking his neck. “Looks like it’s just you and me on this boat.” Him, the behemoth, and the bullies that had built it. He steadily backs up to the roof's edge, luring the behemoth with him. “Let’s get this over with.”

Steve knows he isn’t invincible. He’s lived far longer than he should have, really. Any one of his fevered bouts as a kid could have done him in, much less the Super-Soldier Experiment, much less his dozens of HYDRA base attacks, _much less_ the whole crashing-into-the-Arctic thing. To say nothing of his run as an Avenger.

What had Loki called him? Out of time? _If anything, I’m overdue._

But he’d gotten Sam and the others out of this godforsaken place. He’d lived just long enough.

The behemoth bellows, again with that blasting wall of sound, and Steve falls to one knee. No need to get up, he thinks as the monster closes in, not this time. No need to spend these final seconds looking into poor Sterns’ mutated maws.

Instead he closes his eyes, and pictures Sam’s lovely face. Sam, the light of his life. It’s never been by accident that he puts his faith in peop—

_CRUNCH._

Oh, it hurts. He’s winded, alright. Out of air.

But, Steve’s flying.

Really. He’s soaring, hurtling through space. Shimmering blue sky is all he can see, rapturous and tranquil. The lapping of the waves below is all he can hear. Well, except for—

“You melodramatic fuck,” Sam sighs, holding Steve tight.

 _Light of my life_. "Nice timing," he laughs, squeezing back and pressing his mouth beneath Sam’s jaw.

“Shut up and lean into my turns,” Sam spits. “D’you know how heavy you are? _Do you?”_

Steve smiles like an idiot, shifting his weight into Sam’s steering. Within seconds the corvette shimmers into view, discernible only by the slightest warping of the stars and waves beyond it. Well, that, and the two people standing on its roof, waving to them with glowing batons: Kia, and— _Bucky?_

“Oof,” he laughs as Sam drops him unceremoniously onto the frigid—slippery!—hull. “Sam,” he sighs, rushing up to Sam as he skids to a landing a few meters beyond.

“Why,” Sam groans, shrugging out of his wingpack as he trudges forward, “do I put up with this. Why. _Why,_ Steve? Three billion men on this planet and I sign my life away to a disaster magnet with a martyr complex. _Why._ Fuck—just, fuck me.” With that last word he cinches the space between them, kissing up into Steve’s mouth.

Steve throws his arms around Sam with all his strength, holding him securely up once Sam's legs give out. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into Sam’s ear. “Didn’t want Sterns jumping on the ship. But you’re right, I—”

“Hush,” Sam mutters into his neck. “Listen up, Rogers. I am wholly intent on spending the rest of my life with you. And if these stupid stunts of yours take twenty years off it, then so be it. But if you're never gonna leave me behind again, then neither am I." He takes Steve's face in his hands.  _"Do you hear me?”_

“Loud and clear.” He falls back, letting Sam plop down onto him again. His eyes overflow as he kisses Sam’s temple. _Loud and clear, angel._ He strokes Sam’s back until his heartbeat slows.

“Are they always like this?” Kia mumbles to Bucky.

“Twenty-four seven.” Bucky irately twirls his flight baton. “Hey, Steve? You should probably take him inside.”

“Right.” Steve rocks back onto his feet to carry Sam through the open hatch. “He needs medical attention, stat—”

“Way ahead of you,” Kia pipes, waving them through the security portal. “The others are already undergoing their scans. You know jumping out after you was his idea, right?” She nods to Sam, fingering the pale charm dangling from one of her braids. “He screamed at the Paul Rudd-looking guy to throw him the jetpack, and he was off. No hesitation.”

“Woke me right up,” Bucky grumbles, albeit through a grin. “Never thought I’d be so happy to hear that clown’s voice.”

“Who’s the clown?” Sam mutters, stirring as Steve carefully lays him onto a medical bed. “Oh, _right_. The super assassin who slept through the whole mission. Really appreciate that, Buckaroo.”

“Didn’t mean to,” Bucky grumbles. “’s T’Challa’s fault.”

 _So that’s where you were._ Small wonder he looks far cleaner than he had earlier. But Steve inhales sharply at a different thought. “Were you two fighting again?”

“Uh.” To his surprise, Bucky’s face flushes. “I mean—I guess—yeah. Yeah.”

“Why? What happened? Did he—”

“He’s lying to your face, Rogers.” Sam's eyes are still closed. “Okay. I know I’m gonna regret asking this, but.” He slowly exhales, laughing part of the way. “How the hell  _did_ you two end up as the cat king’s sugar babies?”

“Sam.” Steve folds his arms as Kia bursts into chortling laughter. “Bucky, what...?”

“Don't look at me. I didn’t do anything.” Bucky abruptly turns around and stretches his arm. Pretends to stretch. Steve had so not missed how he’d flushed even more furiously just then. _Some things never change_. “Whatever. I’m going back to sleep. Glad you’re okay, Wilson.”

“You, too,” Sam chuckles. “Woulda said, you know, ‘glad you’re still in one piece,’ but, uh—”

“Oh, fuck _off_.” Bucky exits the med bay in a huff, his face contorting into a wide grin.

“Cranky little bitch. What I get for interrupting naptime.” Sam opens one eye. “What’s this scan for, anyhow?”

“Oh.” Steve grins and taps his new necklace charm. “I’m buying us all keybeads. Everyone in Wakanda uses them."

"So, what, we're Wakandans now? Steve."

"More like we’re stopping by there for a bit. Just until we have our next move planned. T’Challa’s giving us amnesty in exchange for any stuff from the Raft. If the raid hits the press, then I promised I’d release a statement claiming I’d busted you all out and stole the stuff alone.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “And you came up with that deal yourself.”

"There may have been some hand-holding." Steve laughs through his nose. “I think they got sick of me moaning over how long they were taking.”

“Squeaky wheel. How bad you think Sterns’ll fuck that place up?”

“Not as badly as I wanted to. The State Department’s covered up worse." Oh, _has_ it. "Besides, Ross was the one who unleashed it."

Sam whistles. "He really did that to his own employees? And here y'all were with your nonlethal BS. Psh."

Steve exchanges eye-rolls with Wanda. "Either way, something tells me we’re not gonna hear much about it on FOX."

"Shame," Sam stage-sighs. "You just know The O'Reilly Factor's my go-to for frontline reporting."

Across the room, Clint abruptly breaks down into gasping laughter. Even Nareema cracks a slight grin as she compiles Wanda's bioscan. Meanwhile, Amanika's ampallang joke is lost on Lang. "Is that one of those hipster earrings? Pass."

"Oh, right—" Steve pulls his own keybead out from his collar. "You’ll be able to stream news reports on your keybead. Won't have to miss Bill's dulcet tones after all.”

“Pfft. Still dunno what a keybead is, but if you’re paying...”

“It’s like a Starkwatch, but not ugly. And does way more stuff.” He absent-mindedly fingers his own, until a message from T’Challa jolts him to attention.

_I am happy to hear you and your team made it out safely._

_Thanks to you and your team_ , Steve replies.  _Get anything good from the Raft?_

_You might find out someday, Captain. Hopefully not the hard way._

Ah. Right. Diplomacy. Steve sits up straight, thinking of how he’d need to behave in front of a President, or Prime Minister. One who actually looked out for their people.

 _Your Majesty,_ he continues, _could I ask where Bucky got relocated to? And why?_

The next message takes curiously long to arrive. _We had a chat. He fell asleep. I let him lie._

 _Bucky actually slept?_ Steve is genuinely floored. _How’d you get him to do it?_   

 _He let me moan about politics,_ T’Challa eventually replies. _I admit it’s not a readily arousing subject to most._

Huh. Well, Steve’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. _Thanks. Seriously. Whenever you’re ready to convene, just let me know. And if there’s anything I can do to help out._

_Of course. And do give Wilson my regards. You don't meet a man like that every millennium._

“Hey, Sam,” Steve laughs, “T’Challa says—”

At that moment Sam fastens on his own keybead. _Steve?_ _STEVE_  
_THESE THINGS ARE WILD TF_  
_STEVE CAN YOU HEAR ME?  IS IT MY VOICE? OR A ROBOT VOICE SOUNDING THE WORDS OUT?_  
_STEVE ANSWER ME_

Steve cracks up and kisses Sam's forehead. “Sounds like it’s working. If you’re ready to get some shut-eye, you can set it to rest mode, and—”

“I can sleep when I’m dead.” Sam makes a face and scoots to one side of the narrow bed. “Hop on up, already.”

“Get a roooom,” Clint groans.

Lang punches him in the elbow. “Don’t ruin the moment!”

“Sam…” Wanda bolts up, having strung her oval-shaped keybead onto one of her many necklaces. Her eyes are blown wide from whatever she’s watching. “Your mom is _pissed_.”

“Talking to her now,” he laughs, tapping his new keybead. “Her church group’s arranging a protest in DC next week. Oh, Steve, she says hi and hopes you’re eating enough.”

“I say hey back.” His heart singing, Steve climbs into Sam’s bed and settles in for— _STEVE—_ for the longest night of his life— _ANSWER MY QUESTION STEPHEN. ROBO VOICE? OR NAH? STEVE._ _STEEEEVE_

Home sweet home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about turning this into a semi-IRL AU wherein the B plot consists of Cap & co. trying to stop Putin from rigging the US Election?? Thoughts?? Worth a shot?? 2 real no fun??? Oh to be in May 2016 again


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to optimustaud and fabyenn for commenting!  
> Yall know that I screamed my house down when the trailer dropped last night!!! Shuri’s gauntlets!!! The fucking casino fight!! Emo nemesis Michael B Jordan!! T’Challa doing business in a hoodie!! QUEEN ANGELA BASSETT!!!!!! Anyways im dead now xoxo

* * *

**BIRNIN T’CHAKA**

T’Challa takes hold of the spade.

It’s bitterly quiet, this arid savannah. Breeze should have a sound, he thinks as he digs. Does this world around him not teem with life? Life! A gift too lovely and too fleeting for this hollow silence to justify.

This lonely place is millions of years in the making, T’Challa knows. Millions of years of this majestic evolutionary crucible at work, uplifting lives and ruining them and embracing them anew, of hunger and pain, of desperation and sorrow and triumph, until the beings whose highest mandate he can carry now stand behind him, unmoving. Their heads are lowered in grief. Some weep, their eyes too wet or squeezed shut too tight to _look! look! oh, would any of you—!_

If they do not raise their precious heads, T’Challa despairs, if they miss any one of these brief moments, will only they realize too late what they have lost?

After the unending funeral proceedings, after the weeping and singing and drumbeats and twanging lyres and low bellchimes, after S'yan's heartbreaking recanting of his and T'Chaka's days together, after Shuri's invigorating eulogy, after his own choked-up mess of a statement, this dearth of noise is ugly. It's hideous and wrong. Improper. Disg—

"Give it here."

The spade leaves T'Challa's hands before he can think to protest. It occurs to him now that his face is drenched, is sopping wet, and that he cannot see with his eyes. He has been operating on an hours-old memory of his sister. Not who Shuri is in this instant, crouched on one knee as she widens his meager scrape in the earth with abandon.

His hands now empty, T'Challa wipes his eyes in vain. Bast, he had hoped to make a greater dent than that.

But Shuri's strength is absolute, as unyielding as her expression is severe. In undyed clothing lacking any ornamentation, and with her braids tied back from her face, she would perfectly resemble a priest only by donning a sepulchral veil. T'Challa can scarcely imagine what poor fool would attempt veiling Shuri.

Within minutes the hole in the ground is just wide and deep enough for the sapling. Ramonda carries it forward now, a pale clay urn bearing the soil and ash and topped with the pink-leafed sprout. Slowly she steps, her eyes unreadable behind her white veil. The rich browns and purples of her funereal dress evoke the veining of the sole tree growing meters away, unless it is merely T'Challa's wishful thinking.

Now over two decades old and wide at the trunk, N'Yami's tree spills over with lavender-hued blossoms which lend that silent breeze a soothing fragrance. But the mere thought of his mother leading T'Chaka through the veldt again sends T'Challa's eyes flooding over. As he, Shuri and Ramonda place the sapling in the ground, his tears are the first droplets of water to feed its roots.

Shuri sighs and squeezes T'Challa's hand as they stand. Together they help Ramonda to her feet. Close up, T'Challa can see that her wizened face, too, is tear-streaked. She clings to T’Challa’s arm as though unable to stand on her own, setting off alarms in his head. Ramonda is not herself.

_Wrong,_ all this is wrong. There has been a mistake. There must have been a mistake. Please, let there have been a mistake. O, Gods, please! Let him repent, let him reform, let him turn back the clock and redo, retry, try again—O, what T'Challa would sacrifice for one meager _again!_

Time goes flat, stretching into eternity. Infinite and unknowable, it cannot hear his pleas.

T’Challa cannot tell when exactly his world had flown apart so. He has no memory of the past morning, of the night before, of the day preceding that. Perhaps he is back in Vienna, flying high over those loose red pearls. Perhaps time is frozen. Perhaps he is trapped here unto perpetuity. Who can say?

Not he. The grasses beneath his feet wither and die before his eyes. Were they not alive mere moments ago? He should have paid attention! He should have cherished them, should have watched them grow, should have stayed by their side the whole way through—should have—

"Straighten your back," Shuri hisses in his ear. Her vicelike grip yanks him out of his reverie, buoying him up to the surface of whatever red ocean had filled his head. With that, her arm snaps back to her side, unbent at the elbow.

T'Challa considers abdicating the throne, not for the first time, not for the second nor third. If Shuri could sustain this willpower through future tragedies of half this scale, why in the world should he stand in her way?

Immediately S'yan sighs in the back of his head. _Do not mistake yet-untempered youth for hardened spirit._

But, T'Challa wonders, what more temperance could any human possibly endure beyond this?

No voices answer.

Now approach the Three, as conservatively dressed as T'Challa has ever seen them. Not one cigar or patterned cravat in sight. N'Juguna has donned a unique kanga for the ceremony, deep purple threaded with gold and printed in green with T'Chaka's face as it was in his Black Panther years. Adhiambo holds in her gnarled hands the impending Birnin's shield generator, dormant for the time being. Were stands between them, the only one to wear a veil. It lends her slight frame the mystery of a stranger and the gravity of a specter. T’Challa can already sense her, years from now, haunting the back of his head.

Already have they given their condolences and made their own speeches. T'Challa knows these have come to pass, even if he cannot remember a single one of their words. Whatever niceties have dripped from their tongues in these days past will surely be the last he'll ever hear.

As Adhiambo plants the generator into the soft soil before T'Chaka's sapling, T'Challa tightens his grip on Ramonda's frail arm. The Adored plant their heels and spears into the ground. Shuri, too, spreads her legs into a steadier stance.

Adhiambo returns to stand alongside N'Juguna and Were. "When you are ready, Majesty."

_With me, Shuri_ , T’Challa pleads as he extends his hand. _He was as much your father as he was mine._

After slowly exhaling, Shuri steps forward and places her hand in T'Challa's. Her fingertips brush the fang-shaped keybead in his hand, pressing it gently into his open palm.

At once the signal bursts forth, and the shield generator pulses with a white-hot blast that coats T'Challa's flesh in searing heat. Just as quickly the moment passes, and T'Challa looks up to watch that expanding blue dome surge into the distance. Now the air feels a shade cooler, crisper, and ripe with the scent of ozone. The Birnin stands.

Shuri squeezes his hand before taking hold of Ramonda's free arm, pressing her head flush against her mother's. This is the fourth time in T'Challa's life that he has witnessed his sister weep openly, and the first in over a decade.

Time shrinks and branches before his line of sight. In months, years perhaps, his father's roots will close around that shield generator. They will hold the tiny thing close, feeding it the sun's energy and sustaining it into perpetuity. All else may fall to chance—whether T’Challa may ever return to these grounds, whether he will survive into the next year, whether any of them will—but not this place. Nothing and nowhere is half so absolute as a Birnin.

Shuri leads the walk back to the funeral camp, with T'Challa holding Ramonda's arm in her stead. In formation around them march the Adored, their red and gold uniforms flashing in the late morning sun; then follows the palanquin bearing the Three and their security detail; then the twin lines of priests.

The thousands-strong mourning party trails the somber caravan. T'Challa knows many of them will pitch prefabricated housing kits of their own, massive auto-unfolding mechanisms of biosteel and juafiber with hydroponic tanks and thumbnail-sized extranet routers. Others will sleep wholly uncovered, or under the traditional leans-to of the ancient days, whose loose ceiling fronds must reveal the light of no fewer than thirteen stars.

All who do not return to their old homes this night will become the first permanent residents of Birnin T'Chaka, granted immediate voices in the matters of civic planning, elections and commerce.

"Well done," S'yan murmurs as he takes T'Challa's face in his hands. T’Challa blinks, yanked back into the present by the softness of his uncle’s palms. "He could not have wanted a finer planting. You do your lineage proud." He wipes one trailing tear from T’Challa’ cheek, then another, then stands on his toes to kiss T’Challa’s forehead. T’Challa tries oh so hard to speak, to comfort his uncle, to emit any word at all. He does try.

Until long after sundown T’Challa visits with every single person present. He designates a VI to keep that information safe, that of all these brave homesteaders who would see to his father’s legacy. They, too, will be remembered, their names embossed onto this world for eternities to come. He thanks them, every last one, struggling to keep his voice at a decent level.

_Alive_! T’Challa could proclaim, could bellow to the heavens. _We are all of us alive—do you know? Do you know? Alive!_ What luck! What luck! What luck?

His calves clench— _dance! Run! Leap!_ His heart patters against his ribcage, frantic and full. All these quiet souls, bowed and prostrate, what on earth are they doing? They are wasting—wasting their own time, wasting their gift—each second passing is a loss, do you understand? _Don’t be like me—don’t lose what you should hold tighter than all else—hold it close! Hold it—_

“T’Challa.” Shuri stands at the entrance of his modular villa. With a jolt T'Challa realizes it had been T’Chaka’s before now; he chokes on the knowledge, gags. Gasps. What time is it? Had he walked here on his own accord? Is any of this real? “Talk to me.”

“I apologize,” he hoarsely replies as his head plummets toward the grassy plain. He takes a breath, gathering his bearings behind what he prays could pass for a mien of calmness. Of sanity. “Did I say something aloud?”

“Not in hours.” Shuri steps through the ornamental outer gate, beckoning for him to follow. A small, high-walled courtyard separates the gate from the villa’s main entrance. The thing had unfolded only a few minutes before, T’Challa processes. The only furnishings within are built-ins, hard-angled and devoid of softness. Her words echo across the vast space— _hours hours hours—_ hitting him while he is down.

He does not want to be inside, T’Challa could protest, not in this cruel place—he wants _out_ —wants the sky—that wretched wind would be kinder than—

“I have spoken with the Three,” Shuri murmurs as she seats herself. Deep circles have appeared under her eyes in the hours since the planting. “They are here to help us, T’Challa. Beyond the politicking, before all else, they serve Wakanda. We seek the same ends. Please don’t forget that amidst all this.”

T’Challa swallows and makes a show of nodding. It’s as much as he can muster.

“They have sent us a shortlist of grief counselors,” Shuri continues. “My mother as well. She’s already given them her thanks.”

Right. That. Those. “And for us to do the same would display a measure of good faith.” Bast, T’Challa wants to smoke, outside. Outside. _Out out out—_

Shuri pulls a censing kit from the folds of her clothing and places it atop the tadelakt-coated countertop. Next comes a lighter and four spindly sticks of perfume. Within seconds, the dark space blooms with soothing smoke. Had she read his mind? It would certainly not be for the first time. “Good faith, and good judgment. I’ll say nothing further. But please think on it.”

“I will.” Sighing, T’Challa steps toward his sister and folds his arms around her. “Shuri. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Please.” Shuri exhales and presses her head against his shoulder. “I’ve done nothing yet. Get some sleep, brother. Tomorrow will be no easier.”

T’Challa kisses his sister’s forehead and follows her out. That blessed breeze engulfs him, lifting the hems of his sleeves and pant legs. He watches Shuri head out toward her own villa. She meets Ramonda at the gate before shutting it firmly behind them.

B’Tumba finds him a few minutes later, still standing in the courtyard. “Majesty.”

T’Challa nods his way. “How are you faring?”

“I’m… not sure how to answer, in all honesty.” B’Tumba bites his lips, his gaze downcast. “None of this feels real, somehow. Er—apologies—not to imply—”

“There may not be a right answer,” T’Challa admits. He pats the ground next to him and pulls a carton from his sleeve. “If S’yan needs no attending, would you care to join me?”

Wordlessly B’Tumba seats himself in the grass. T’Challa lights a second cigarette for him. They do not speak again, only gazing over the high courtyard wall to the boundless night sky above. Just before dawn’s rosy fingers stretch up from the east, B’Tumba bids him well and retreats inside.

T’Challa does not sleep that night, nor the next.

* * *

**BENEATH BASHENGA**

Sam could live on this balcony.

It’s roomy enough, sure, about two meters by five, give or take the curvature of the outer edge—roomier than his Raft cell had been, at least. He’s within throwing distance of the myriad street vendors who take wireless payments for everything from paper containers of succulent shaved rotisserie beef to spare keybeads to virtual intelligences with fully customizable personalities (starting at only Ŵ0.39!). And the view is quite lovely.

He can see a good ways south, with that long crack in the black sky erratically twisting to and fro overhead until it disappears over—well, is _horizon_ even applicable here? But it comes alive right at 0613, with the sun’s light refracting from its narrow opening. The light spills onto the innumerable massive modular mirrors positioned at all points along Bashenga Rift’s stone faces. In under an hour it genuinely feels like broad daylight, even down here, far beneath the Earth’s surface.

Nah, Sam doesn’t kid himself. That view notwithstanding, this hotel room is fucking boring.

The first few days had been fun, sure; Sam had let himself relax tenfold for every hour spent in that damn cell. Steve had pampered him from head to toe and back again, and a personal valet had promised them and then delivered on immaculate room service. The shower alone was something out of one of Sam’s wet dreams— _you will appreciate my puns, Barnes, so help me—_ and that bed! Jesus Lord good night. When not using it, they’d spent the second day poring over the dozens of available delivery menus while testing out the room’s climate and entertainment controls.

But that, too, had passed soon enough, and Sam is goddamn bored.

“T'Challa never actually forbade us from leaving the hotel,” he points out for the thirty-seventh (but who’s counting?) time since they had entered the lavish suite. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“You get assassinated,” Barnes supplies without unfocusing from his keyfeed, “or abducted.”

“Or arrested,” Steve adds as he looks over a map holograph. “We don’t know for certain that Ross isn’t on our tail.”

“Ross couldn’t get his people into Wakanda even if he tried,” Wanda argues. “And even if he did, they'd get shot on site. Or, uh. Speared.”

“Okay,” Steve retorts, “but you can’t tell me some people here aren’t still pissed off about Lagos. Everyone knows what we look like. We couldn’t blend in to save our lives.”

_You couldn’t_ , Sam could argue. Neither would Baby Buckaroo, not by any stretch of the imagination.

And yet Barnes for one had barely moved from the couch since they’d arrived. Instead he’d been online, his eyes glazed over as his keybead had thrummed. Sam has exactly one guess as to who he’d been writing, and not by choice.

But as for himself and Wanda—they’re both darker-skinned, street-smart enough, and not nearly as infamous as _Captain America_ and the guy who for three days had been framed for assassinating Wakanda’s king.

Okay, so Sam was maybe putting too much faith in the average citizen where Wanda was concerned. But _she_ hadn’t been the one to kill the missionaries, remember? That had been Rumlow’s fucking grenade, not hers. Shit, she had been the one to try to contain it!

“You didn’t stop Barton or Lang from peacing out,” Sam reminds them as he slumps onto a fat divan. He can control the firmness of its cushions with yet another keybead app. Sam hates sitting on anything too soft. All the blood rushes to the back of his head and he feels off-kilter. Feels wrong.

“They didn’t just leave,” Steve sighs, looking Sam in the eye. “They had other places to go to. Families to return to. Outside of Wakanda. Just tell us where you want to head, Sam, and T’Challa promised someone could drop us there. Anywhere at all.”

_But we’re already here_ , Sam could protest. Yes, he has all sorts of places he really should get to at some point soon—but, first, he's standing in honest-to-God Wakanda. The real Wakanda, not the front that the crown had maintained for so long. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, literally. _Literally._

That said, Sam is perhaps barking up the entirely wrong tree. He switches tactics.

_Wanda_ , he signals to her, _whatcha think? It would just be for a little bit! Promise._

Wanda snickers, but sagely keeps her gaze toward the wall-sized holoprojection screen. After watching the entirety of T’Chaka’s funeral, she’d managed to find an old Sokovian state-produced film—all triumphant brass and flapping red flags and strong-jawed workers fighting faceless soldiers with pitchforks.

_What would we even do?_ she asks, lowering the holoscreen’s volume without having to lift her hands.

_We’d get to tell everyone else for the rest of our days that we stepped on land never conquered by white people_ , Sam responds quickly enough. _Never touched by white people, Wanda. Never seen by them._

Well, with maybe one exception. If Sam ever meets that Klaue dude, he’s finishing what Ultron started, extremities-wise. Call him petty. Try it.

_You know what?_   Wanda closes her eyes, then grins. _Sold._

YES. “Then I’ll going back on the balcony,” Sam sighs as though in defeat, “until such a time as one of you chumps orders me a pizza.”

“Can we even get pizza here?” Sam hears Barnes ask before he slides the door partially shut.

Huffing, Sam fires off no fewer than six Concierge-approved halal pizza joints that could deliver right to their door. _O ye of little faith_ , his dad had so often loved to quip.

_nice_ , Bucky writes back. _if I order us some will u promise not 2 jump off the balcony_

_no_ , replies Sam as Wanda joins him. She leans indolently over the sleek metal railing. Sam’s pretty sure it’s metal. Mostly sure.

“Too many people watching,” Wanda murmurs under her breath. “Gotta wait.”

“People,” Sam replies, “cameras, mics…” He doesn’t bother to touch on the likelihood of their keychats being bugged. Okay, maybe Steve does have a tiny bit of a point.

But, hell, it’s Wakanda. _El Dorado_ , to some misguided fools _._ A legend, a dream, and a promise that the whole world wasn’t stained by the forces that had shaped Sam’s. There was a wellspring of goodness in the polluted, corrupted, oppressive desert of this life, and that oasis was Wakanda. And here’s Sam, trapped in a bubble floating atop the world’s purest water.

“Think you can land us softly?” Sam whispers. His hands have begun to shake. Just nerves, he tells himself.

“Still want to go for it?” Wanda murmurs, perhaps picking up on some twitching line in his face. “Or d’you want to go back inside?”

By now the little footpath is devoid of people. Well, Sam knows exactly what he doesn’t want to do. “Now,” he says, “or never.”

Wanda wraps one arm around his waist, pulling him close. Now it is.

A red cloud engulfs Sam’s body as Wanda lifts them off the balcony and down toward the lush walkway. Street-level here would have varying meanings, Sam had figured out quickly enough; machine-powered vehicles dip into tunnels far beneath the open-air roads reserved for foot traffic. The multitudes of airborne VTOLs and sleek helicopters fly closer to the Rift’s mouth, the sun glinting from their hulls in stunning multicolored bursts.

“Wanda?!” he hears Steve shout from inside. “Sam! Wait—!”

Sam doesn’t look back. There’s no slim chance that Steve would dive headlong after them, sure, but Sam knows Steve a bit better than the average person. _Just taking a walk_ , he writes in their keychat. _And you two had better have a pizza ready for us when we're back._

Two seconds pass as Sam and Wanda touch down. Three. Four. By now a few people have turned the corners, but none stop to glance their way. One is an old woman with gleaming purple lip disc, the other a tweenaged boy speaking to someone online. The two wave to one another as the distance between them closes.

_Fine_ , Steve writes back. _Ping me if you feel unsafe at all. Please?_

_Have some faith_ , Sam replies, cackling. _Let me know if you hear from Sharon or Nat while we’re out._

And they’re off.

Wanda takes Sam’s hand and squeezes. “Let’s walk around! There’s a plaza not too far that way.”

As he and Wanda turn the corner onto a wider lane, Sam resists the urge to break into a jog. It’s been far too long, these paths are smooth as all get out, and he certainly wouldn’t be alone. In all directions people are running or stretching or cooling down, expertly weaving between the walkers and street vendors and those rolling about in wheelchairs or the few in hovering seats. Pets abound, too, dogs and leopards and animals that Sam can scarcely recognize in leashes and harnesses, and more than one four-legged companion robot.

Sam had as of late taken pride in Washington D.C.’s jump in quality when it came to accessibility. In a few short years the place had transformed from a loosely connected clump of neighborhoods to one cohesive city abounding with access ramps and safe public transit. D.C. has absolutely nothing on Wakanda.

Sam’s keybead’s passive functions have already laid out a dozen equally quick routes to local landmarks, shops and emergency service stations. The winding pathways slope gently from one level of the Rift’s faces to the next, and real live humans actually man the uncountable solar-powered elevators for a straight shot to the Rift’s upper slices. Half the tasks that would be automated in the States are managed by people here, Sam notes. _Guessing they know something we don’t._  

They soon reach a larger thoroughfare whose inner lanes are reserved for beasts and robots of burden. Scores of humped cattle and camels bear metal baskets of goods or human riders. Several hulking spider-limbed machines convey their human conductors, glittering with status lights and onboard navigation touchscreens. Public VTOLs drop off passengers only to pick up new ones from designated lift zones.

Between apartment complexes and commercial spaces, Sam can spot community gardens, shrines, and covered springs for public bathing. Every block seems to boast a fablab, whose solar-powered printers spit out shapes of stained glass or biosteel, whatever that is. Just as many CNC routers drill elaborate designs into whichever materials the clients bring along or purchase onsite.

As Sam and Wanda stroll, vendors and promoters wave their way with glowing signs and holographic displays. Sam has to toggle a setting on his keybead to keep pop-ups from bursting into his line of sight. _Guess some things never change._

“Free samples! Free samples! While they’re hot!”

“Lovely lady, care to test out the cutting edge of pneumonic device generators? You won’t believe what you’ll remember unprompted!”

“See this man here? The most beautiful man in all of Bashenga? With one scan, I can print his radiant face onto any khanga of your choosing in a mere ten seconds! Behold—”

“No, thank you,” Sam laughs, immediately wondering how quickly he could purchase an opaque scarf. Just what he needs, to have his escapee mug immortalized on some kid’s t-shirt.

“Most beautiful man in all of Bashenga,” Wanda dramatically sighs, “can we look in here?” She motions to a shop whose interior is carved directly from the rock face. A vivid mural of cobblers at work shines from between its windows in pinks, greens, oranges and yellows.

“Pfft. Sure.” They duck inside. It’s a shoe shop, with half the items painstakingly hand-stitched and the others 3D-printed from rubber in a vast range of colors. Twice a uniformed employee asks if she can help them. “Just browsing! Thanks, though.” She leaves them alone after that. Sam feels an unfamiliar warmth roll through his veins. Unchaperoned, in a shoe store! What a concept!

D.C. to this day is a predominantly Black city, but even so Sam finds himself mildly unaccustomed to the lack of a token white shopper. They were everywhere, he had discovered the hard way, whether in the States or Iran or Lagos. Inescapable. But here, Wanda is the palest person in sight, and not by very far at all. He shakes his head, unable to stop from smiling. _Momma_ , _I_ — _I wish you could—_

“Hm?” Wanda pulls a large boot box from a high shelf before frowning at the price tag.

Had Sam spoken aloud? Or triggered some keybead function he hadn’t yet toggled off…? “Uh, I think my momma would’ve liked some of these.”

“You should get her something!” Wanda beams. “You think customs would give you grief over a pair of shoes?”

Sam snickers. “Guess there's only one way to find out. Let’s see… no idea how any of these sizes correspond to US sizing…”

“Oh? What size does she wear?”

“Uh. Eight? I think eight.”

“Same as me! If you see something she’d like, I can try ‘em on.” Wanda pulls a pair of black leather boots from one shelf, knee-high and shot through with glowing red threads. “Cute.”

A half-hour later they leave the shop, with Sam toting a pair of arch-supporting sandals designed to promote circulation. Wanda wears her new boots out, modelling herself in the reflections of the many wall-sized windows.

“My last ones had racked up a bit of mileage,” she chuckles. With that, she stops abruptly in her tracks.

“Wanda?” Sam follows her gaze. They now stand before a pair of vividly-painted wooden gates, wide open to reveal the scene beyond: a long courtyard lit by a rainbow of floating lanterns, the rock walls on either side dotted with large doors and twisting ramps and stairs and more of the human-operated open-air elevators. Few of the doors stay closed for long.

Dozens of children and a handful of adults flood into the courtyard. Under the eye of the adults, the children all sport backpacks or messenger bags and chat amongst one another. Two sit on a metal bench closer to the entrance, watching a combined projection cast from both their keybeads. Some sit with trays of hot food at low picnic tables, with others eating from home-brought lunch kits. One little girl with thick locs leans over a stretch of fence to their right. She beckons to a street vendor pushing a fruit cart. “Sir! How many bananas would this pay for?”

“It’s a school,” Wanda murmurs, her hands falling limply to her sides.

Sam checks his keyfeed—sure enough, _Bashenga'te Academy_ hovers over his navpoint. _Established 1822, Birnin Bashenga’s premier Crown-funded primary school enriches and prepares young minds for a bright future._ “Guess all the classrooms are inside the rock faces.” He sighs, thinking of the chain link fences and littered sidewalks that had surrounded his own elementary school. His heart is brimming with so much—so much of something he can't quite name—that it aches. "Must be lunchtime."

“Mhm.” Wanda swallows. “Uh. Let’s—let’s keep going.” Off she strides. “The map says there’s an overlook point this way.”

_Huh._ “You know,” Sam tells her once he catches up, “when we get back into the States? You could attend a school if you wanted. College, I mean. Since I guess you’ve already—”

“Attend college? While on the run from the government?” Wanda’s mouth twists. “It was a bad idea even before this mess. Too many people and cameras in one small place.”

“Maybe we just have to find the right place,” Sam offers. “Doesn’t have to be anytime soon. But you ever wanna do a school-visit road trip? Hit me up.”

“Let’s wait until after all this Zemo garbage dies down.” Wanda laughs through her nose. “I get that we’re safe from Ross’s people, but I’m surprised we haven’t been flagged by the police here yet.”

Famous last words.

“You two!” Sam hears a man bellow. “Halt! Patrol!”

_Shit._ He glances around—sure enough, two patrolling guards approach from across the street, both in metal body armor and carrying spears. Spears plus who knows what else. In any case, he’d seen the Dora Milaje in action—maybe spears were all these people needed to take him and Wanda down.

Sam's brain springs into firefight mode—he could summon Redwing, sure, but that’s a forty-second window, minimum. Wanda could take care of herself, but he knows the last thing she needs is another damn incident in public. And he, well. The absolute last thing in the world he wants is to piss off the people who protect Wakanda.

_Why the hell did I drag Wanda into this_ , he curses himself— _stupid stupid stupid—_ it was one thing to risk his own thoughtless ass, but Wanda—

“Keep your hands to your sides,” orders the other guard, a woman over six feet tall, “and freeze in place for bioscanning. You are not charged with a crime so long as you hold still. You are not in danger.”

_Sure._ Sam swallows, glancing toward Wanda. A few passersby have looked their way, but just as quickly they speed on past. Should he message Steve? Would it be worth dragging the planet’s most impulsive superhuman fuckwit into whatever is happening here?

The officers glance back and forth between Sam, Wanda and each other. Chatting, Sam can guess. They probably have access to his and Wanda’s keybead stats. But, now that he thinks about it, that means not all is necessarily lost. _C’mon, Cat King…_

“How exactly did you two manage to acquire King’s Blessings?” asks the first guard, a middle-aged man with heavily lined eyes. “They are reserved for Crown-approved refugees alone.”

Checking immigration status, huh. Sam slowly exhales. _Here goes nothing_. “We’re, uh, friends of His Majesty T’Challa. He rescued the two of us from an American prison. They were starving her.” _Lay it on_. “And they tortured me." God, that felt so weird to say, even if it were technically true. God. God. "He granted us amnesty in exchange for—”

“I know who they are,” the female guard cuts in, her eyes round. She lowers her spear. “The Avengers!”

The first guard squints. “The responders from the IFID Incident who ruined everything? Those Avengers?”

_Fuck._ Sam opens his mouth—

“Yes,” Wanda replies, keeping her hands to her sides. “We learned that a former HYDRA operative was planning to unleash a virulent disease strain. I—” She swallows. “I was the one who tried to contain his grenade.”

“Tried,” the guard repeats, “and failed. Eleven Wakandans died at your hands. Missionaries! All of them! And now you have the nerve to take advantage of his Majesty’s—!”

“Enough, M’Kebe,” his partner orders, crossing his spear with hers. “You know damn well that these two are not the enemy. Save your strength for the masked freaks.” She turns to Sam and Wanda. “I’ve put a bulletin out to the other patrollers. Stay within this district, Avengers, and you will not be accosted again. Just keep out of trouble.”

Sam watches his life flash before his eyes. _That’s it?_ That’s it. When he sees T'Challa again, Sam so owes him a beer. But— _masked freaks…?_

“Humph.” The guard M’Kebe finally lowers his spear. “I will not contest the king. But know how rare it is that we would ascribe such a status to any outsider the world over. Be on your way, and mind your behavior. We see you.”

_No doubting that._ “We will,” Sam replies, pulling one arm around Wanda’s shoulders as the two guards turn to walk away. “C’mon, let’s keep mov—”

“Wait.” Wanda takes a step forward. She kneads her shaking hands together. “I’m—I’m sorry. About what happened in Lagos. I mean it. Your people were there to—to do good. They had gone well out of their ways to help.” She slowly exhales. “The world is a—a much poorer place for their loss. Not a day goes by that I don’t regret what happened." 

_Wanda_. Sam sways on his feet. _No, baby—you didn’t mean to—you don’t have to apologize—_

"And I will do everything I can to not make the same mistake from now on. Please—please know that.” Wanda takes a shuddering breath, ashen-faced.

M’Kebe blinks, then gives Wanda a shallow nod before continuing to walk away.

His partner rolls her eyes at his retreating back. “We’re supposed to attack outsiders on sight,” she says in a lower voice. “It may not feel like it, but he has done you a great kindness. There is a chance your words were not lost on him.”

“I understand,” Wanda replies. “Thank you, erm…?”

“Waseme,” she responds with a smile. “Chief of the King’s Guard here in Bashenga.” She clears her throat before tapping the keybead mounted in her tiger-shaped gauntlet. “By the way—I have a daughter, just about your age. As we speak she studies biotics at the Crown Institute of Physical Science. She would absolutely love a holo with the famed _Scarlet Witch_ —if it’s not too much trouble? And you as well, Avenger!”

Wanda’s jaw drops and then snaps shut just as quickly. “I—yes! Of course. Sam?"

Sam grins. "What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Oyana. Named for a beloved colleague, one who I’m afraid to say was lost in Zemo’s attack.” Waseme puts her hand on her heart. "Oh, this will thrill her."

“I’m so sorry to hear that. My condolences.” Wanda takes a deep breath as Waseme taps her keybead. 

"Here we are. It'll capture for about three seconds. Ready?" She wedges herself between Wanda and Sam, beaming.

“Hello, Oyana!” Wanda exclaims as Waseme’s keybead blinks.

“Wonderful.” Waseme twirls her spear. ““From what I understand, the Black Panther would not have captured Zemo without the help of you and your fellow Avengers. Please give them my thanks.”

“And you have ours,” Wanda replies to Waseme. “And—I wish your daughter good luck at school. I hope she—I hope she does well.”

Sam finds Wanda’s trembling hand and gives it a squeeze. He wants to salute Waseme, but settles for a smile. _Not sure what constitutes a Wakandan salute._ Best not to accidentally offend anyone. “We seriously appreciate your understanding,” he says to Waseme. “And your partner’s.”

Waseme winks. “Enjoy your time here, Avengers. If the King trusts your presence here, then so will I.” Off she strides, still twirling her spear.

_Wow._ A few moments pass as Sam gathers his bearings. As much as he wishes Darlene were here, he can scarcely imagine how badly she would’ve flipped out with a spear pointed in her face. Lord knows she’d suffered through enough of that shit in her time. Sam shakes his head, holding the paper-wrapped sandals close. He'd gone in expecting deportation or worse and come out having suffered through only a photo op.

“Sam…?” Wanda squeezes his hand. “You alright?”

Sam wipes his eyes. “Uh. Yeah. I'm good. You? That was tense.”

"It was. I'm glad you were here." Wanda frowns. "Not sure why I just burst out with that. If they were acquainted with any of those missionaries, they said nothing about it."

"You've been sitting on the Lagos thing for some time, now. It's a lot to stomach." Sam shrugs. "Hey. If you ever want to talk? Parse through stuff? That's what all of us are here for, you know. We've seen a lot of lives lost in our times. Some of them we couldn't stop. Me, Steve... uh." Well, Nat and Sharon were out of the picture for the time being. Rhodes—eurgh. No telling, at this point. Sam feels his stomach twist up at the thought of Rhodey, paralyzed from the waist down, wherever he is.  _No. Who else._... _Barnes?_  Psh.

"I believe you," Wanda murmurs. "Maybe... once we figure out our next move. Maybe."

"Sure. Whenever you feel like you're ready."

“Then...” Wanda’s eyes are misty. "I will, if you do."

Sam blinks. "If I what?"

"If you find someone to talk to. About, erm. About being in the Raft. About what they did. I don't just mean talking to Steve, either. Someone... impartial, you know?"

Oi. Sam slowly exhales. "Uh. Yeah, I guess. Yeah."

The next few minutes are much quieter as they follow the navpoints Wanda had charted. In time, they reach the overlook, and Sam's jaw drops.

Sure, the view from that balcony had been nice. But here, at the sight of the Bashenga Rift sprawling out into the distance—waterfalls cascading from the ravine’s mouth, skyscrapers protruding from the trough like iridescent stalactites, mist and clouds and refracted sunlight blending into a downright heavenly backdrop—God, Sam wishes Rhodey could see this. Rodey, Nick, Darlene. Everyone.  _Someday._

Wanda sighs, resting her head against Sam’s bicep. “Thanks,” she murmurs.

“Hn? For what?”

“For asking me to come along. I just know I'd be kicking myself forever if I’d chickened out.” She grins. “Hey, want to take a photo?”

Oh, boy. “You know we won’t be allowed to share or post it anywhere, right?”

“I know. This is just for us!” She throws her arm around his waist and holds up her keybead. “Say ’Fuck you Zemo!’ on three. One, two, three…!”

Okay, Sam may have to find a way to show this to his mother, even if it takes the rest of his days. God, Sam does miss her. “Whaddya think of heading to New Orleans after this?” he asks Wanda.

“Never been there,” she replies. “So, no reason not to. Mardi Gras, right?”

“Uh. Not this time of year, but, uh. Could be fun.” He grins, taking one last look at that stunning view. “Alrighty. Let’s see what Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumbass are up to.”

“Haaa.”

_Be back in a few,_ Sam writes into the keychat between the four of them.

_Oh thank god_ , Steve writes. _You scared the shit out of me Sam_

_Gee I wonder what that’s like_. Sam mutes the chat and begins to whistle as he strolls.

_Finally got steve to calm down_ , Barnes soon writes in their separate keychat. _pizza’s on the way. advise that u get back b4 we eat it all_

_asshole_ , Sam replies with a chortle. _save us some or im forwarding steve the love letter u sent me on accident yesterday_

_NOOOOo,_ Bucky writes. _FUAskjdfLSDSLDKFno_

Oh, Sam so has him pegged.

* * *

**GENTILLY**

TELL THE TRUTH, one picket sign reads from the TV inside the house. AVENGERS = INNOCENT, reads another. A third: GIVE ROSS THE AXE!

“We are live on the scene at the White House. Protesters are reacting to leaked footage of United States operatives allegedly torturing a detained former Avenger.” The next shot pans over the hundreds of people gathered on the White House front lawn. Mostly women, mostly Black, all pissed. No candlelight vigil, this. Jericho can count at least four megaphones and one vuvuzela. "Earlier this evening, the President gave a press briefing with his statement on the leak."

“Let me be clear,” President Matthew Ellis says in a stern voiceover, “I am under immense pressure to disregard the leaked tapes as fake. As staged. As merely a product of intent to destabilize our union. While the facility shown in the tapes is indeed a United States-based facility, the Avengers shown in the footage have not yet released statements regarding the contents therein.” Ellis gives the camera an even glare. “However, given the recent extraordinary incidents around the globe, I can promise the American people one thing: that we will handle this matter with all of the seriousness and care that it merits. Should new information come to light, we will react with appropriate haste and severity against anyone who may have broken the Sokovia Accords, violated the Constitution, or committed what would amount to a war crime.”

“And there you have it, folks. Sources close the President state that he is prepared to give the Avengers codenamed Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Captain America, and—” She pauses, squinting at the teleprompter, “—Ant-Man, ahem, full pardon—pending key witness testimony, of course. Said key witnesses may include Tony Stark, aka former Avenger Iron Man; ex-KGB spy and AWOL Avenger codenamed Black Widow; the Avenger codenamed Iron Patriot, currently out on medical leave; and the Secretary of State, former General Thaddeus Ross. Ross was heavily injured in the incident, but none of the leaked footage definitively shows how—”

“That jackass really is pulling out all the stops,” Monica mutters between mouthfuls of crawfish. “Can’t believe it took him eight years to grow a spine.”

“Just a few months til the end of his term,” Jericho reminds her. “My money says he don’t give a shit anymore. Gonna do what he feels is right. ‘Immense pressure.’ Tch.”

“Given how Congress’s reacted to all the shit that’s gone down since ‘08, I’d say crossing party lines is the least of his worries.” Monica tosses an empty crawfish shell into her patio table’s dump bucket. “Especially with that clown that’s frontlining 'em now.”

Jericho sniffs. “I still can’t believe that dude clinched the nom. After all that head-ass shit he said. What planet we living on?”

“No way he’ll win. Businessman with zero experience in public office? He'll never survive the debate stage. You just know he’s got something nasty just waiting to get dug up. Bad oil ties, emoluments, something.”

“F’you say so.” Jericho sucks a crawfish head dry. “Wish the Dems’d get their act together. Wrestle up somebody I’d wanna actually root for, y’know? But I gotta pick between a Clinton 'n someone's cranky grandpa.”

“They could nominate someone’s pet hamster and still have the better option.” Monica spits into the bucket. “Guy’s face makes me sick. Ay! Remy! Change the channel already!”

“Got it!” The TV flips from CNN to local news.

“—uckily, the Coast Guard reported no deaths from the electrical fire that caused the shutdown. Roxxon officials cite robust emergency drill preparation and team cohesion as factors enabling every worker to make it off the rig alive.”

Jericho’s jaw drops. _Say what, now?_

“We’re so thankful,” a man in a hard hat now tells a WVUE reporter. “We’re so thankful it was just a small fire. Nobody got hurt. It happens, you know. The rigs are complicated and, uh. Didn’t lose much worktime at all, really. We’re just so thankful.”

Jericho texts Blade.

“Hey. Who’s that dude?” Monica wipes her hands on a roll of paper towels. Her leer at the screen sets all of Jericho’s nerves on edge.

“Huh?” There’s a whole bunch of dudes in the shot, but none that Jericho can recognize offhand. "Which one?"

“See him in the background? That dude with the fake hand. Who’s that. I know I've seen him somewhere.”

“Uh. Fuck if I know.” _Text back, dude. C’mon. C’mon—the fuck is happening_ —no deaths on that rig, his whole ass—Blade's the last person on this planet to make shit like that up—

Sighing, Monica pops the cap off a beer. Abita Purple Haze. Now Jericho’s thirsty. “Then riddle me this, Jericho Drumm. A Gold Coast-based arms dealer, a big oil CEO with vampire ties, and a mutant mercenary manufacturer all walk into a bar—”

“Then they need to get they eyes checked.” Jericho rummages in Monica's ice chest for the one bottle he wants. Amber… Strawgator… Turbodog… nope… nuh uh… _c’mon_ …

Monica sorts. “Anyways, what’s the deal about to go down in that bar?” She drains her beer in one go.

Jericho starts as his phone buzzes on the table. Just one text.

_tell Eli he better not have any homework tomorrow tonight_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For inquiring minds, I picked the Ŵ symbol because it looks like a crown! Seeing as that is who issues the currency. Bonus that it contains a W hehe.  
> I'm going to hold off on updating until Black Panther drops here in the US. If you've run out of stuff to read, might I suggest [FALCON & BUCKY](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12441444)? :]


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